Plans for Brisbane’s tallest tower outside of CBD

It was a much more ambitious plan for the site than Aria’s 2022 plans, which included three 12-storey office towers on the site.
“Central to these improvements is the applicant’s decision to forego a fourth tower on the site and instead provide a community park,” Saunders Havill says in its assessment report.
The planned development, with the Brisbane Skyneedle in view.Credit: Aria Developments
“This 1600-square-metre space not only provides a significant community recreation and wellbeing benefit but dramatically reduces the bulk and scale of the development as a whole.”
The documents show there would also be a “world-class” retail and dining precinct, connected by arcades and laneways.
“By virtue of its size, position and prominence on Melbourne Street, the site is of critical importance to South Brisbane and has the potential to be the catalyst that propels the next generation of revitalisation in the area,” Saunders Havill says.
The development would include 1078 car parks and 75 motorbike spaces, of which 821 and 50 respectively would be allocated to residents.
In a novel approach to car parking, 243 of the spaces would be accessed via a ticketed boom gate and be shared between residential visitors, hotel guest and retail customers.
Casual users would be able to park two hours without penalty. Hotel guests and visitors would have their tickets validated either at check-in or by the residents they were visiting.
Saunders Havill described the scheme as “the future of the management of car parking for mixed-use developments within the city”.
“Specifically, the cross-utilisation of car parking that directly meets the demand…of the individual land uses will ensure minimum standards are exceeded for hotel land uses, whilst not resulting in commercial car parking that is otherwise unused outside the operation of the commercial activity.”