HOTA Commercial Development Strategy
Client
Gold Coast City Council
Location
Gold Coast QLD
Architect
ARM Architecture
Project Budget
$350 million
Traditional Custodians
Yugambeh
HOTA Commercialisation Strategy
HOTA – Home of the Arts – transformed ageing civic infrastructure into a dynamic arts and recreation precinct for Australia’s fastest-growing city. The $350 million investment established a world-class cultural hub that has elevated identity, diversified and amplified the visitor economy, and fostered a vibrant creative sector.
The HOTA Commercialisation Strategy framed the project inception, defining priorities for the precinct’s staged realisation. Maytrix delivered the comprehensive strategy, balancing strategic and commercial outcomes for the transformative, multi-stage development.
Located on the former Gold Coast civic offices site, HOTA is now a vibrant arts, cultural, and lifestyle destination. It diversifies the visitor economy, fosters creative industry growth, and supports economic development. The precinct achieves this by integrating arts, events, and creative industries into a cohesive civic experience.
“The HOTA precinct is the centrepiece of the Gold Coast Cultural Precinct masterplan which lays out the vision for the city’s cultural and artistic activity.”
HOTA’s evolution as a hub for artistic and cultural activity is guided by the 2013 masterplan, developed by ARM Architecture and Topotek1. Gold Coast Council embraced the distinctive Voronoi motif as a defining and unifying element of the precinct, applied in bold primary colours to the distinctive Sound Shell of the HOTA Outdoor Stage and at a gigantic scale to the HOTA Gallery façade.
With the city skyline as backdrop, the stage is the centrepiece of a curated cultural program hosting free and ticketed events, with commercial and hospitality opportunities enabled through strategically located infrastructure.
The HOTA Gallery is the third realised stage of HOTA and home to the City of Gold Coast’s extensive collection of art and cultural artefacts. As one of Australia’s largest regional galleries, the $60.5 million HOTA Gallery unlocks access to a significant collection, including works by Indigenous Australians. Nearly half of the 40,000 works are by women, reflecting the diversity and depth of the collection.
The HOTA precinct continues to be realised in stages. It establishes a cultural destination and civic heart for Australia’s sixth-largest city and the most populous non-capital city in the country. The Commercialisation Strategy framed the realisation of a major precinct development that is both defining and transformative.
A Voronoi diagram is a network of cells that occurs naturally in many plants and animals.
HOTA Gold Coast
Image - ARM Architecture
HOTA Gold Coast
Image - ARM Architecture
HOTA Gold Coast
Image - ARM Architecture
HOTA Gold Coast
Image - ARM Architecture
“The third completed element in the HOTA Masterplan for the City of Gold Coast, the architecture provides a beacon for the site, and long views to the precinct from afar.”
Awards
National
• 2022 AIA (QLD Chapter) - Public Architecture
• 2022 Australian Interior Design Award - Public Design
• 2022 PCAC Impact Award
State
• 2020 Gold Coast Urban Design Awards – Urban Design Commendation (HOTA Bridge)
• 2018 AIA (QLD Chapter) – Landscape Architecture Award (HOTA Stage)
• 2019 Colorbond Award Commendation (Voronoi shade, HOTA Stage)
• 2022 QLD Architecture Awards – Public Architecture Award (HOTA Gallery)
Features
• HOTA Bridge - 130m Bridge
• Sound Shell & Outdoor amphitheatre (5,000 Pax)
• HOTA Gallery (six levels, international-standard exhibition spaces)
• End-of-trip facilities & visitor amenities
