World-leading architects push ahead with bold $6bn plan to save 2032 Olympics
The team behind the Northshore stadium development have hit back at naysayers’ claims about the costs, flood problems and transport woes and laid out the full incredible plan.
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The world-leading architects behind the $6bn Northshore stadium proposal have revealed they have already had serious talks with 2032 Olympic planning committees and will meet with the Brisbane Lions and Cricket Queensland within weeks.
In a Sunday Mail exclusive, the Brisbane Design Alliance (BDA) team have delivered its step-by-step business plan to transform Northshore Hamilton into an entertainment precinct that rivals Queen’s Wharf and Southbank and have hit back at naysayers’ claims about the costs, flood problems and transport woes.
Sports engineering specialist Peter Ayres from Aurecon – who is part of BDA alongside HKS business development director Andrew Colling and Buchan director and principal sector lead Phil Schoutrop – said he and the team of design experts had thought through flood, transport and legacy issues.
Mr Ayres, who designed the London and Rio Olympic Games parks and several World Cup events across Europe, has assured Queenslanders the ambitious project can be turned around by 2032.
“I designed the entire Rio Olympic park, so I’ve got quite a lot of history doing this sort of thing,” he said.
“I (remember being) stood on the site of (the) Rio (site) just four years before the Games, and they were still using it as a motor racing circuit. They hadn’t even cut turf with four years to go, and we still delivered the Games on time.
“We see a lot of people saying, but have you thought about this? Well, yes, I’ve only been doing it for 30 years.”
The six-phase project would be rolled out over two decades, starting with the stadium build and Olympics space for 2032 and the construction of Fisherman’s Wharf along the riverbank – a mini precinct which aims to replicate Sydney’s famous fish markets, allowing locals to buy seafood straight from the trawlers.
Fisherman’s Wharf would be surrounded by shops and restaurants, the aquatics centre and various cultural buildings, with the site wrapped in vast green space to allow for crowd dispersion during the 2032 Games, where 120,000 spectators are expected be gathered each day.
Post-games, the second stage of phase 1 kicks in, with deep canals dug out around the stadium, transforming the area into a mega-version of Southbank, allowing recreational swimming, canoeing and possible boating activities.
Another 45000 dwellings would be added behind Fisherman’s Wharf and a 500-room hotel, with the 97ha site housing nearly 12,000 car parks.
Phase 2 will see 17.3ha of land converted to commercial, retail, residential dwellings with carparking, followed by phase 3 which will be similar but using just 13ha -both sitting behind the stadium.
Phase 4 and 5 will see education and healthcare centres added to the areas on a combined 22ha site in the back corner behind Fisherman’s Wharf.
Mr Schoutrop said the majority of land required for phase one was owned by the state, and the team will be relying on the state’s co-operation for phase 1 of the plan to go ahead.
As for private owners, Mr Schoutrop says they’re keen to understand what the state will do.
“Because they want to compliment it, and get some sort of adjacency that would make their land a little bit more valuable,” he said.
Mr Colling urged the state government to strongly consider spending the $1.6bn QSAC allocation on transport upgrades to the Northshore precinct, which he argues, will need to be invested in eventually to connect the growing suburb.
“The interest is there, and part of part of our weekly series of meetings is meetings with investor funds, but the big question for them is, what’s the state doing?” he said.
“I’m going to speculate that one or both sides of politics are going to come out after October 26 and say, ‘you know what cost of living is not just about saving money, it’s about investing for the future.”
Originally published as World-leading architects push ahead with bold $6bn plan to save 2032 Olympics
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