More development planned in troubled up-market retail precinct
Brisbane Racing Club has big plans for an office tower precinct at its historic Eagle Farm racetrack. But with so much commercial space lying empty across nearby Ascot will it be needed?
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OFF TO THE RACES
WITH so much empty retail and commercial space languishing in one of Brisbane’s toniest retail precincts, do we really need more coming onto the market?
Brisbane Racing Club seems to think so and has lobbed in plans for the next stage of its $1.2 billion Eagle Farm redevelopment - a five storey-office building and restaurant.
The club has submitted a development application to Brisbane City Council for the development called St Leger on the Lancaster Rd frontage of the racetrack.
Racecourse Rd business owners desperate for government support
Construction starts on $77m next stage of Ascot Green at Eagle Farm masterplanned development
According to plans prepared by town planners Urbis, the development includes 7670 square metres of office space and a restaurant incorporating the old manager’s hut on the site.
There will be basement parking for 121 cars and 164 spaces in the existing infield parking area at the track. In these environmentally conscious times, there are 50 bicycle spaces.
Local real estate agent Alma Clark earlier this week pointed to parking constraints as one of the main negative impacts on Racecourse Rd so it remains to be seen if the parking provisions in the development are adequate.
Urbis says the development forms the next stage of the Eagle Farm redevelopment and seeks to provide a “boutique” office development to the east of the historic St Leger Grandstand.
It aims to attract tenants drawn to the trackside location, proximity to the airport and the nearby Racecourse Rd precinct.
Construction has been continuing apace at Eagle Farm despite the coronavirus shutdown. Back in April, Mirvac started construction of the Tulloch House apartment building, the $77 million second stage of the masterplanned development, which will have 1300 workers on the site at a various times throughout the construction period until late 2021.
IRON WORKS
THE Brisbane mining company founded by the late Ken Talbot has racked up another win for its budding West Australian iron ore project.
City Beat readers will recall that Macarthur Minerals earlier this year hired Edward Sugar, the New York financier behind the early success of iron ore magnate Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest, to help bankroll the Lake Giles project to the tune of about $437 million.
Earlier this week there was a major breakthrough in the project with Macarthur receiving a proposal from Arc Infrastructure for rail access from the project to the Port of Esperance.
Macarthur Minerals executive chairman Cameron McCall says that with a substantial amount of exploration work undertaken for the project it was pleasing that critical pieces of the infrastructure puzzle were falling into place.
McCall points out the project has received critical support from the powerful Maritime Union of Australia, which says the development will be a much-needed boost for the local economy. The infrastructure will include a 93 km haul road connected to a railway siding adjacent to the Perth to Kalgoorlie rail line.
Ken Talbot, who died in an African plane crash in 2010, always called his companies Macarthur in honour of the pipe-smoking US general who famously said “I shall return” as he left the Philippines just before the Japanese invasion during World War II.
TAKEAWAY SUCCESS
TAKEAWAY coffee has done a roaring trade since the start of the coronavirus shutdown but with the unfortunate side effect of more rubbish in the form of takeaway cups and carry containers. So a shout-out to Julie and Meg at Lutwyche coffee shop Coddle & Co who are re-purposing old milk cartons to be used as coffee cup holders. The mother and daughter team are big recyclers even offering bags of coffee grounds to local gardeners as compost.
The Australian Council of Recycling says urgent action is needed to manage the additional volumes of waste being generated by Australians during the CODIV-19 shutdown. Restaurants and cafes have moved across to takeaway menus in an effort to keep their businesses afloat during the shutdown.
The council says demand for packaging and packaged goods by consumers and the essential food and beverage sector has increased since COVID19 due to changed consumption patterns.