November_Mirvac_Toombul Renewal_A4 community update.pdf (824.1 KB)
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It’s a bit of a surprise as it seems to be a pretty large project for Irvine Group.
Probably their best known recent project has been the ongoing redevelopment of the Rivermakers precinct at Murrarie, which gives a good impression of the scale of projects that they work on.
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Fun fact - in the late 1990s when AirTrain was about to start construction, the consortium told the government that for a relatively small amount of money they would duplicate the track for an additional few hundred metres to future proof for a Toombul Shopping Centre station (e.g. extend the double track from the junction for a bit longer to establish a straight section where you could drop in a station later). The government had promised that taxpayer funding wouldn’t be used for the project and said no. I thought it was rather a shame.
It raises an interesting question about what the land value would have been with two adjacent stations rather than one.
Possibly unnecessary having two stations so close to each other but an interesting what if? 
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Interesting use of language and descriptors for Kedron Brook floodway.
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I didn’t know about this! Thanks for the info
Any news on Uptown??.
Uptown was a revitalisation project for the previous shopping centre that occupied the site. Given it’s now essentially a greenfield site, and a new developer has taken ownership, I don’t think we’ll be seeing that branding return.
Yet another reason to hate privately funded transport projects. When governments are obsessed with not spending money for infrastructure, everybody loses (except perhaps the shareholders of the private consortia).
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Are you getting Uptown (former Myer Centre) confused with Toombul?
While ISPT are selling out of the centre, I haven’t seen anything to indicate that Vicinity Centres (minority shareholder but management rights holder) are going anywhere.
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Ah yes I’m getting it confused with the ‘Upstairs’ dining precinct that was added late in Toombuls life.
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I know the site is proximate to a railway station and bus interchange, but the entire section south of Masefield St (and the imaginary line across if it continued through to Sandgate Rd) should just be turned into parkland. What’s the point of a TOD if it’s going to flood? A park would be compensatory for the loss of parkland in Victoria for the Olympic Stadium.
The point is to give the local community their ammenities back and eliminate all the traffic the loss of the toombul shopping centre caused to Chermside and other nearby hubs.
yeh i mean the myer centre. I am curious if there is any more news about it.
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Nothing as yet, as majority shareholder ISPT has put their shareholding up for sale.
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It’s entirely possible to construct a flood resilient TOD on the site. Yes, it will flood again to the same height, but that’s a known risk now and appropriate mitigations can be made.
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While not a TOD, if you’ve ever paid a visit to IKEA at Logan, that is an example of how a flood resilient development can be built on (very) flood prone land.
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There is no reason a new shopping centre for the area must cover the entirety of the same site.
At what cost? Flood mitigation technologies often are not cheap, and construction is expensive as it is. That’s probably one reason why Mirvac didn’t build anything in the time they owned the site. Somebody has to pay the cost, and likely it will be reflected in higher prices at the businesses and residences constructed on the site.
My general view is, we should have high density buildings in places that don’t easily flood, and open space in places that easily flood. Now obviously we can’t rebuild Brisbane CBD somewhere less flood-prone, that’s a sunk cost, but we can avoid building on a place that recently suffered badly in a flood, and is likely to flood again and again as climate change worsens.
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The land north of Masefield Street is barely enough space to build a shopping centre. Why does the cost matter if it’s a private developer? The public isn’t stumping up any cash, and if it’s not financially viable neither will the private sector.
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Then they should either get efficient with space and stick to the major attractors, or just build a mixed-use neighbourhood. Not everything needs to fit into the 1950s drive-in suburban shopping centre with huge parking lots model.
Should we just allow anyone to build anywhere if it uses private money? Or is there such a thing as a public interest in land use planning and environmental planning? Even if there isn’t, I am entitled to have views on what is good planning and appropriate development.
And the consequence of heavy development in high-risk areas is higher insurance premiums for everyone to compensate. I think it’s in the public interest for a government to put restrictions on development for that reason.