Community
26 February, 2025
Dream becomes reality
CONSTRUCTION of a new Chinese Cultural and Heritage Centre at Edge Hill is due to start mid-to-late this year after the Crisafulli government promised $2.7 million towards the $4m building.
The centre in Greenslopes St, opposite the city’s Chinese Friendship Garden, will also be funded to the tune of $1.3m by the Cairns and District Chinese Association (CADCAI).
Association president Lai Chu Chan said a further $500,000 from public donations was required for landscaping, operational and contingency works.
She said the aim was to have the centre, which had been a dream of the association for almost 40 years, ready for Chinese New Year celebrations in 2027.
It will provide a permanent home and exhibition space to preserve Cairns’ Lit Sung Goong Temple collection, as well as a venue for community performing arts, research, education, celebrations and festivals.
Mrs Chan said a meeting was held with TPG Architects on Monday to work out the tender process.
She said the centre, which was ‘shovel-ready’, already had council approval. The association’s money would be used to start the project with the government and public donations to be used for completion.
She said it would also be available for other multi-cultural groups for get togethers, performances and their own festivals.
Mrs Chan said the centre would promote stories of Chinese migrants from the Gold Rush era and their shared history and experiences alongside European and the First Nations people of Australia.
“The Lit Sung Goong Temple collection of artifacts remain a tangible link to the early Chinese presence in Cairns and are considered rare and significant due to their quality, size and level of intactness,” she said.
Multiculturalism Minister Fiona Simpson said the centre was an opportunity to share an important part of local history with a broader audience.
“The Chinese Cultural and Heritage Centre delivers on a key Crisafulli government commitment to the Cairns community and is part of delivering a fresh start for Queensland,” she said. “This centre will honour and embrace the social, agricultural, economic and cultural contributions this community made in developing modern day Cairns, while supporting jobs and tourism.
“During the gold rush, almost a third of Cairns’ population was Chinese migrants, with those ancestral ties still running deep across the community today.”
