Images: Brisbane Design Alliance
A new proposal has been unveiled to reimagine Brisbane’s Northshore region with a wide-ranging, privately funded precinct that would house a stadium capable of hosting the Olympic Games in 2032.
Northshore Vision 2050 is the brainchild of the Brisbane Design Alliance, a team of specialist designers in architecture, engineering and planning. It features experts from Buchan, HKS, NRA Collaborative, Aurecon and Nikken Sekkei.
The 60,000-seat stadium would feature an adjacent aquatic centre, wave pool, and retail and hospitality zone. The venue would also include pedestrian promenades extending east and west to provide what is being pitched as a “unique” riverfront experience.
The A$6bn (£3.1bn/€3.6bn/$4bn) project will also support housing, business, recreation and tourism and will be underpinned by the creation of a mixed-use urban renewal zone. The site’s First Nations history would be acknowledged by cultural venues, while other features would include public open spaces, elevated gardens and recreational canals.
HKS director Andrew Colling said: “The vision of the Brisbane Design Alliance is to make Brisbane an even greater city, now and into the future, Our Northshore scheme responds to projected population growth over the next 25 years, providing a mixed-use precinct unmatched in Queensland, located on the shores of our famous river and supported by a private finance model that will minimise cost to the state.”
Buchan principal Phil Schoutrop added: “Stage One would establish a sports and entertainment precinct that accommodates the 2032 Olympics. It includes the stadium, warm-up facilities, and a 2,500 apartment athletes’ village, alongside hotel, restaurant and leisure amenities. This combination of uses will allow for activation every day of the year, with the stadium complementing a much broader community offer.”
Over the subsequent 15 years, the project would integrate an additional 12,000 residential apartments and townhouses, enterprise, innovation and cultural zones, and a specialist high performance sports science and sports medicine zone. The precinct would also feature a central park and an elevated landscape walkway connecting it to Doomben Station.
The project has been met with resistance from the state government, which is planning on upgrading the Queensland Sport and Athletics Centre (QSAC) Stadium to serve as the main venue during the Games. Premier Steven Miles has said it is “highly unlikely” that the A$6bn Brisbane Design Alliance project can be privately funded, while Labor minister Di Farmer has also revealed that tenders have already been issued for the QSAC Stadium upgrade.
Brisbane 2032 has been pursuing a somewhat low-key main stadium for the Games after a major about-turn in March, when the Queensland government elected to scrap a planned redevelopment of The Gabba and reject a review committee’s recommendation to build a new “world-class stadium”.
The Gabba had been set for a major revamp ahead of Brisbane 2032 after the Australian and Queensland governments last year committed more than A$7bn in funding to improve infrastructure ahead of the Olympic and Paralympic Games.
The state government had been due to fund the A$2.7bn redevelopment of The Gabba, while the federal government was to provide A$2.5bn for the development of Brisbane Live, a planned 17,000-seat, multi-purpose arena in the city.
The Gabba project had been signed off by the Queensland government in November, but was ultimately axed in favour of an option to upgrade QSAC Stadium to 40,000 seats for the Games.
Last month, the state government moved to clarify that the first image of the Olympic Stadium was “illustrative only” after its disclosure in the Australian media. The image depicted the majority of spectators exposed to the elements in uncovered temporary seating. Brisbane 2032 will take place in the middle of the Australian winter.
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