High Steaks: Howard Smith Wharves’ boss Luke Fraser shares grand vision for Brisbane 2032
One of the masterminds behind Howard Smith Wharves has his latest vision - a personalised panorama of what Brisbane 2032 might look like. THIS IS HIGH STEAKS.
Brisbane City
Don't miss out on the headlines from Brisbane City. Followed categories will be added to My News.
His dad was a fireman, so was his grandad, but Luke Fraser chose a different path in life - he became a “visionary.’’
As we sit at Howard Smith Wharves, a short walk from where dad Peter and grandad Stanley spent their working lives at the old Kemp Place Fire Station, he’s outlining his latest vision - a personalised panorama of what the 2032 Queensland Olympics might look like.
It’s a vision centred on the Brisbane River which right now is only a few metres from our table, swollen slightly with recent rains and flowing briskly past Felons Brewing Co where we sit drinking lager created by the in-house brewery.
We’re also slicing into grain-fed Eye Fillet from Gippsland Victoria along with Scotch Fillet from the New South Wales Riverina and cooked over coals heated by iron bark sourced from Kingaroy.
Hundreds of people, almost all smiling, throng through this extraordinary space known as the Howard Smith Wharves, one of the state’s most popular entertainment and dining precincts sprawling across several hectares underneath the belly of the longest cantilever bridge in Australia - the Story Bridge.
And all this splendour, this languid atmosphere, this magnificent scenery serving as a backdrop to a picture-perfect Brisbane Friday afternoon idyll in what has to be an “11 out of 10’’ lunch didn’t just happen.
It was just a vision which materialised in the minds of Luke and his friend and colleague, Adam Flaskas, more than one decade ago.
Both men drove the idea through formulation, presentation to the Brisbane City Council, the first ground breaking construction and onward to the present where that vision now serves the city as a wildly successful reality.
“Only recently Adam and I had a look back at the original plans that we submitted as our original vision, and they’re pretty much the same as what we are looking at today,’’ Luke says.
“And now we look at it we think, ‘wow, we really did follow through on what we said we would do.’’
The name “Felons’’ is itself a nod to Queensland history. It refers to Thomas Pamphlett, John Finnegan, Richard Parsons and John Thompson, four ex-convicts who guided explorer John Oxley to the mouth of the Brisbane River and the establishment of the European version of Queensland.
The land itself also has its own history, built as a government relief project during the Great Depression and leased to Howard Smith Co Ltd which moved downstream in the 1960s, leaving behind a waterside wasteland.
As Luke notes, this parcel of land would certainly have had commercial potential, but it wasn’t even regarded as a significantly valuable piece of housing real estate in the 1960s because Brisbane had always, quite literally, turned its back on the river.
“You look at some of those older apartments - they were built with the river to the back of the, not the front.’’
As the second decade of the 21st century began the Brisbane City Council was toying with a range of plans for the site including park land.
But in 2013 threw open the gates to the private sector to see what the visionaries among us could come up with.
Adam, already a seasoned developer, and Luke actually “saw’’ Howard Smith Wharves all those years ago.
They envisaged a vibrant 3.5-hectare parcel of land filled with open spaces, walkways, restaurants and bars all backed by a 500 metre long, 30 metre tall cliff and fronting the waters of the Brisbane River, and they made it happen.
What, then, could Luke’s mind conjure up if you told him to stage an Olympic and Paralympic Games in Brisbane in seven years times.
Luke is not only Chief Executive Officer of Howard Smith Wharves. He’s also board director at Queensland Ballet, president of the Queensland Property Council and perhaps more importantly, connected with the sort of people, whom he would readily admit, have a capacity for turning visions into reality which far exceed his own.
One is Laurence Lancini, the Townsville-based developer who is on the Crisafulli Government’s 100 Day Review for the Olympic Games and who relentlessly drove his vision of the northern based football team The Cowboys into reality over three decades.
Another is Li Cunxin, former artistic director of Queensland Ballet who through force of will drove the renovation of the Thomas Dixon centre and transformed the ballet company into a globally recognised success story.
“Li is an absolute force, I mean, it’s hard not to love him to death,’’ Luke says.
“He is so passionate; I have hardly met another person like him - he had this vision and he never wavered from it and look what they built!
“It’s one of the best ballets in the world.’’
What Luke sees in the Olympics is not merely two weeks of world-class sports but a catalyst for far reaching change which will serve a generation perhaps not yet even born.
One non-negotiable is a world-class stadium linked into Brisbane’s CBD.
“I really think the stadium needs to be well located towards the inner city so you can walk straight out of the stadium and maybe have a short trip of walking distance to the bars and the clubs and the restaurants.’’
A good example is Melbourne’s MCG - easy to get to, big crowd capacity, close to the inner city, good transport connections and capable of catering for sports and entertainment.
Our food, our arts (the Queensland Ballet will have to play a part in the opening ceremony) our scenery and the particular characters and nuances of not only our regions, but our suburbs and precincts, all have to be drawn into the equation, he says.
But the one constant is the river - this 344 km blessing which begins around Mount Stanley and ends its journey at Brisbane before emptying into Moreton Bay.
As Luke acknowledges, we may have exploited it for commercial purposes, but we never really appreciated its beauty until a handful of decades ago when Brisbane Mayor Jim Soorley started pointing out its potential and introduced the river cats.
“We have quarried it, made a sewer of it, placed heavy industry and cement works next to it while even the people who lived on it didn’t want to look at it - the buildings had their backs to it.
“Roll forward to 2025 and suddenly we realised it was one of our superpowers.’’
If we capture the spirit of the river, it’ll become a symbol of the 2032 Games, and there are numerous ways to highlight its beauty.
“Imagine this,’’ says Luke, warming to the theme.
“You turn up as a visitor to the city at the airport and you get a little shuttled to the river right next to the airport.
“And then you come up the river into the heart of the city. You could come to a place like Howard Smith Wharves, and along the way you would see people rowing on the river, people on recreational boats on the river, people running along the edges of the river.
”And then you walk into a place for dinner, and you are right next to the river, and then dusk comes and you see a light show on the river and the next day you might take a trip back down the river to explore Moreton Bay.’’
Luke is Brisbane born.
He grew up loving the place, particularly the slice of it we are sitting on because it’s so close to where his dad Peter and grandad Stanley were stationed at the Kemp Place Fire Station just up the cliff.
As a kid, as the family drove across the Story Bridge, he would gaze at it through the car window, knowing that was where dad and grandad worked.
His grandparents were ten pound poms, their first view of Brisbane from the old Yungaba Immigration Centre which we can see from our table.
They built a life in the still youthful, raw city of Brisbane in the middle of the 20th Century which far exceeded anything they could have hoped for back in rain washed England.
Brisbane Luke says, has gone through several identities but the one which will emerge for the 2032 Olympics will be the most positive yet.
“We have the food, we have the arts, we have the climate, have the friendly people and we have the river.
“We are the river city.’’
Yay! Traffic is Brisbane is about to get a lot less congested
Council has identified 14 busy Brisbane roads where it wants to extend clearways to unclog traffic. But not everyone’s a fan of the idea.
Council under pressure on congestion-busting CBD tunnel as deadline looms
Council has come under fire after refusing to narrow down an opening date for a Brisbane CBD Metro tunnel critical to busting congestion and boosting services.