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The floating night club proved popular with the public, attracting 47,000 people. (Website: Lucesco Lighting)
A radical plan to secure the future of the Riverbank Palais Adelaide Festival venue by sinking and then re-floating its "unsightly" base has emerged, and is currently being investigated by the city council.
The barge that supported the night club remains alongside the bank of the River Torrens in Elder Park.
The venue proved popular with the public, attracting 47,000 people earlier this year.
Its future has been in doubt because of uncertainty about what to do with the concrete barge, which has been labelled an "ugly hulk".
The Adelaide Park Lands Authority (APLA) last night recommended the structure be removed, describing it as an eyesore.
APLA rejected other alternatives of moving the structure to a more inconspicuous location or improving its look, and the council will make a final decision next week.
But Lord Mayor Martin Haese said the new idea of sinking it and then bringing it to the surface for next year's festival was put forward by Councillor Anne Moran.
"We don't know whether it's possible from an engineering perspective but I certainly have asked the CEO of the City of Adelaide, Mark Goldstone, to investigate this prior to next Tuesday's council meeting," he said.
"If it is possible and if it is economically feasible and affordable, then it actually could be a very elegant solution.
"It would be, ideally, wonderful to see the Palais continue in 2018 and 2019 during the Adelaide Festival, as what was planned originally, but nobody likes the unsightliness of the barge in between the festivals."
Mr Haese said if the plan was adopted, the barge would probably have to be moved down river "and sunk in one of the deepest parts of the river, which I imagine would be the weir".
"It it certainly worth investigating because it does give a best-of-both-worlds solution," he said.
"The barge can be sunk out of sight, and then it can be returned and used in the festival."
The original Floating Palais de Danse, on which the Riverbank Palais was modelled, sank permanently but mysteriously in the late 1920s.
Last night, APLA also gave its approval to a plan to have a helipad operating in the CBD, possibly by the end of the year.
Members last night voted to support the commercial helipad west of Morphett Street, with a proposed five-year lease that would be reviewed after two years.
APLA said a licence would need to have checks and balances, and address noise and environmental concerns, and the plan would also have to be formally approved by the council.
"There are still one or two more hurdles for a potential operator to go through," Mr Haese said.
"I would expect that if they were to secure that from CASA that we might see it, I would imagine, possibly by the end of the year."
Topics: arts-and-entertainment, local-government, carnivals-and-festivals, community-and-multicultural-festivals, sa, adelaide-5000