KIRK reveals ‘Gabba West’ stadium proposal

KIRK has become the latest design studio to put forward a proposal to remedy the challenge of delivering a main stadium for Brisbane’s staging of the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

KIRK, which is headquartered in Brisbane, has presented its proposal for a new 60,000-seat ‘Gabba West’ stadium to the Queensland Government’s 100 Day Review Committee, which was launched on November 29.

KIRK said its proposal looks beyond the 2032 Games, delivering Brisbane a modern stadium while utilising the existing Gabba Stadium for warm-up tracks and expanded spectator events. At the conclusion of the Games the historical site can be returned to the city to deliver over 2,500 apartments, community green space and expansion of the East Brisbane State School by 2042.

The proposal seeks to tap into the site’s transport infrastructure, integrating with the Cross River Rail and South-East Busway while being within a 15-minute walk of eight major central rail and busway stations. It is not constrained by tunnel infrastructure, allowing future residential, commercial and public developments to proceed unimpeded with the historical Gabba Park at their heart.

KIRK said it sees a new Brisbane Stadium as a “city shaping opportunity”, leveraging key infrastructure and reinvigorating an unrealised central Woolloongabba precinct.

Richard Kirk, founder and director of KIRK, added on LinkedIn: “The proposal demonstrate(s) that Gabba West, the Government owned land to the west of the existing stadium, is a sensible solution for the Brisbane Olympic Stadium.

“Gabba East is the site currently occupied by the existing stadium, while Gabba West maintains and enhances the Gabba precinct as our primary sporting and events hub whilst also harnessing the almost complete Cross River Rail Woolloongabba Station.

“Gabba West is a compromised site, with the CRR and Clem 7 tunnels below, and is well suited to redevelopment for a stadium structure that is light and flexible. Gabba West is a site that is already degraded (it’s not pristine parkland), it has the greatest concentration of transport infrastructure in the city centre with four rail stations nearby and the busway and metro.

“Almost half the world plays cricket – the Gabba is a byword for world class sporting events for over 100 years – why change?”

In December, design and consultancy organisation Arcadis set out the case for a new 60,000-seat stadium to serve as the centrepiece of Brisbane 2032, with its proposals for the Victoria Park area of the city gaining high-profile support.

Arcadis’ Brisbane BOLD 2032 report, put together in association with architectural, landscape and urban design company, Archipelago, has been discussed as part of the fresh 100-day review into infrastructure plans for the Games.

Victoria Park has already been proposed and dismissed as the site for a new stadium. However, an oval stadium with a seating capacity of 60,000-plus is the centrepiece of the 22-page report drawn up by Arcadis.

The review process

Queensland’s Premier, David Crisafulli, officially launched the 100-day review in November, with a possible new main stadium still on the cards. Investment in venues has proven to be a hugely controversial subject ever since the International Olympic Committee (IOC) approved Brisbane as the home of the 2032 Games in July 2021.

The launch of what is the second review into the plans was an election pledge as Crisafulli claimed a victory for the Liberal National Party in October’s state election, ending Steven Miles’ Labor Premiership.

Critical venue infrastructure will be funded by the Australian and Queensland Governments under the Brisbane 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games Intergovernmental Agreement signed in February 2023. The A$7.1bn (£3.57bn/€4.29bn/$4.47bn) venue infrastructure program will reshape some of Queensland’s most significant venues and precincts, aiming to leave a legacy for the community well after 2032.

Back in March, the Miles government opted to scrap a planned revamp of The Gabba and also ruled out the possibility of building a new stadium at Victoria Park after an initial independent review of the venue infrastructure plan for the Olympics was released.

The planned A$2.7bn redevelopment of The Gabba was one of the projects under assessment during the review, and it was recommended it should be replaced with a new stadium at Victoria Park.

The review estimated that the cost of the Victoria Park stadium, which would seat 50,000 fans during the Olympics and have a legacy capacity of 55,000, would cost between A$3bn and A$3.4bn. The government rejected the proposal as it did not believe it would be possible to deliver any new stadium within the previously agreed funding plan.

As an alternative, Miles’ administration opted to pursue a more modest enhancement of The Gabba in consultation with the Australian Football League (AFL), Cricket Australia and other stakeholders. The government also pledged to investigate upgrades to the Queensland Sports and Athletics Centre (QSAC) and Suncorp Stadium.

Suncorp Stadium would host opening and closing ceremonies, while a redeveloped, 40,000-capacity QSAC would host athletics events. In July, the first image of the redeveloped QSAC emerged in the Australian media, and the somewhat low-key depiction led to the government stating that the image was “illustrative only”.

The image showed a single permanent covered grandstand, with the majority of spectators exposed to the elements in uncovered temporary seating. Brisbane 2032 is due to be held in the middle of the Australian winter. At the time, Crisafulli described the QSAC plans as an “embarrassment”.

In August, a privately-funded proposal emerged for a new 60,000-seat stadium in Brisbane that would be capable of hosting the Olympics. The Northshore Vision 2050 project 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 project was met with resistance from Miles, who said it was “highly unlikely” that the A$6bn project could be privately funded.