23 and counting: Medical centre plan for northside ‘Big Boot’ site
If you’re not feeling well, move to Brisbane’s northside. The medical centres just keep coming after Council approved the 23rd centre within a 4km radius.
A landmark former car yard site on the corner of Gympie and Rode roads in Chermside is about to become at least the 23rd medical centre within a 4km radius.
Council has approved a material change of use application by developer Cornerstone Healthcare Property Supervisor to increase the floor space of the three-storey building.
It was to have included 4850 sqm of healthcare services and 220 sqm of retail space, but will now have an extra level of healthcare uses, taking the total floor area to 5705 sqm.
The development originally was to have had 153 carparking spaces and five motorcycle spaces across three basement levels, but will now have a total of 186 parks with a boomgate to cordon off parking for doctors.
The design, and architects, were also changed after concerns were raised by Council about its visual impact on such a prominent site, with tens of thousands of vehicles driving by each day.
Pekol Traffic and Transport said in the development application that “this minor increase in traffic generation would not be expected to have any significant adverse impact on the
safety or efficiency of the surrounding road network’’.
Council ticked off the original application last year and in February, 2020 the car yard on the site moved the old Big Boot, a north Brisbane landmark for about 40 years.
The Car Mine brought in a crane to remove the boot from its roof to carry out maintenance and restoration but promised it would “will soon return looking better and safer than ever”.
Car Mine owner Charlie Senese said at the time that the final resting place for the boot was not known.
The centre is at least the 23rd medical facility within about a 4km radius of the site.
The massive influx sparked one longtime Stafford family doctors’ practice to launch a petition of its patients, which drew more than 120 signatures, after it feared “five minute medicine’’ could replace traditional family medicine.
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