Woolloongabba Priority Development Area: Thousands more homes, prices cut under new plan for Gabba precinct
A revised development plan for the Gabba precinct will deliver 2000 extra homes and reduced house prices, Deputy Premier Jarrod Bleijie says.
Brisbane’s new inner-city arena will be operational one year before the 2032 Games, as the state government launches its search for private developers to deliver the 17,000-seat venue alongside an entertainment precinct within five years.
Expressions of interest for the Gabba Arena and entertainment precinct site opened on Thursday.
Planning Minister Jarrod Bleijie expects a consortium of developers to apply to build various parts of the project - including the arena, accommodation, apartments, restaurants and open space sites - between mid 2026 and 2031.
“We’re allowing the private sector to give us other alternatives to the traditional, build, own, operate model,” he said.
“It may be that a consortium puts forward two different options, one to develop just the arena site, and then secondary to that, after the Gabba comes down, but we have made the EOI process sufficiently broad enough to be able to cater for all of those opportunities.
“It will narrow it down to a couple of players, I suspect.”
Expressions of interest will close in mid January 2026.
The federal government’s $2.4bn funding contribution initially earmarked for the Gabba Arena has been redirected to the Victoria Park stadium and other venues.
The state government has also unveiled an amended Woolloongabba Priority Development Area (PDA) Scheme after just three development applications were lodged under the former plan.
Mr Bleijie has scrapped mandates within the PDA for social housing and greenspace, which he says were restricting development opportunity.
“When you mandate things, it stops things happening,” he said.
“We need the market to determine what is deliverable, and there’s no point in having a document out there saying mandating social affordable housing if the private sector is not going to deliver it.”
Infrastructure charges will also be capped at council rates to reflect postcode value.
Mr Blejie said under the former plan, an additional 20 per cent infrastructure tax was placed on developments within the PDA boundary.
This has been removed.
Mr Bleijie said the new scheme had cut red tape to fast-track the delivery of more than 16,000 homes within the Gabba Entertainment Precinct and reduce the end cost of a home.
“Under Labor’s failed Woolloongabba development scheme, only three residential development applications were lodged,” he said.
“Industry has told us repeatedly that it can deliver more housing in Woolloongabba by removing onerous conditions and better responding to market constraints.”
Introduced under the Palaszczuk government in 2023, the Gabba PDA was designed to help revitalise 106 hectares of under-utilised inner-city land around Woolloongabba, East Brisbane, Kangaroo Point, and South Brisbane.
It initially set out to unlock 14,000 homes to prepare for a population influx of 24,000 people ahead of the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
The Crisafulli government decided to amend the scheme following industry feedback and to incorporate any recommendations from the 100 Day Review on the Gabba Stadium rebuild and former GoPrint site redevelopment, which are not currently provided for within the current PDA.
Queensland Property Council Executive Director Jess Caire commended the government’s quick response to industry concerns on the complexities of the scheme.
“It is reassuring that the government has listened to industry’s concerns about the barriers to delivering more housing that were present under the previous development scheme,” she said.
“The updated PDA has been supported and informed by industry and will unlock the property sector’s capacity to deliver housing in Woolloongabba at a time when constrained project feasibilities remain the single biggest impediment to new housing supply.”
School’s shocking 80-spot climb in NAPLAN rankings
