Shopping centre memories washed away

I grew up on the north side of Brisbane, and in 1967 the big local news was the opening of Toombul Shopping Centre, one of the very first large scale suburban shopping malls in Brisbane.   (I thought Westfield Indooroopilly may have opened first, but now that I check, it followed a few years after.)

A few things I remember about Toombul when it opened:   

*  the big T out the front:

* A water feature inside which was like droplets flowing slowly down multiple strands of fishing line - you don't see that style of water feature anymore, and I still don't quite know how it worked.  Can't find a photo of that...

* And in the smallish outside play area there was a metal cage rocket ship with (I think) 3 levels to climb up.  This is apparently it:

I recall a milkbar making very nice thickshakes, too.  And donuts - I would say that I probably ate my first cinnamon and sugar fried donut, made by an automated machine, from there.

My Mum was very fond of the place, and quickly abandoned the old (what the English would call) "high street" supermarket at Nundah and drove the short distance further for the convenience of "all under one roof" shopping.  She went there almost daily - a shopping habit from a time of smaller refrigerators and larger families requiring constant re-stocking.

I haven't been inside it for many, many years (in fact, I'm not sure I have ever been back since I returned to live in Brisbane in 1995, settling on a different side of the city.)   But looking at the internet, I see that over the years, it had cinemas added, and the sort of mid range eating areas you get around mall cinemas these days.   Although high end retailer David Jones had left years ago, I presume it was still the central shopping district for the surrounding suburbs.  (Westfield Chermside is bigger, and more up market, but it's still quite a drive away.)  Not sure when this photo was taken, but it gives an idea of its not inconsiderable size:

 

 

But, this is what it looked like a couple of months ago:

I hadn't even realised that this had happened and that it's been closed since then!   I mean, it always used to be prone to having a "lower car park" beside the canal flood, but I don't think that in 2011, when Brisbane had more extensive river flooding than this year, the waters made it into the shopping centre at all. 

This has only come to my attention because of the news yesterday that Mirvac, the current owner of the centre, has decided to not re-open it.  They say the damage is too extensive, and they are considering what to do with the site.  All leases have been terminated (about 140, I think I heard.)

This is pretty extensive and remarkable damage, and I would presume that something grander will  arise from the flood plain.  But it just goes to show the extent of urban damage that is going to be caused by increased flooding under climate change.