The Cromwell Promotion Group is backing the Chinatown project, which would complement the existing Cromwell Old Town attraction.
The Chinatown proposal would reconstruct a small Chinese goldmining settlement that was located on the banks of the Kawarau River, near Cromwell.
A report by Cromwell Promotion Group secretary Terry Emmitt said the original Chinatown settlement was continuously occupied for more than 50 years (between 1866 and 1920) by about 400 Chinese who had come to work in the Otago goldfields.
The site of the original settlement was destroyed by the creation of Lake Dunstan in the early 1990s.
The original site was excavated by the Clutha Archaeological Project during a three-week period in 1980, as pat of a commission from the New Zealand Historic Places Trust prior to the construction of the Clyde Dam, a report from Mr Emmitt says.
Many reports and articles are available to use as a historical basis, outlining the site and the Chinese way of life on the goldfields, for use in reconstructing a Chinatown precinct, he said.
The Cromwell Group has drawn up a layout plan for the proposed Chinatown redevelopment of the Lake Dunstan foreshore, behind the town's Memorial Hall on Melmore Tce.
"The intention is to reconstruct the settlement as best as possible to the original," Mr Emmit says.
Rock huts, gravel mounds, and pathways would feature at the site, alongside information panels and a kiosk.
No provision has yet been made for any funding to back the project, Mr Emmitt's report says.
