Brisbane Transit Centre Demolition by 2020 for Brisbane Live

The Brisbane Transit Centre – often cited as one of Brisbane’s ugliest building clusters will be demolished by 2020 to make way for Cross River Rail’s new underground Roma Street Station and Brisbane Live.

Deputy Premier & Treasurer Jackie Trad made the announcement that the $5.4 billion Cross River Rail project would transform the western gateway to the City and deliver the proposed ‘Brisbane Live’ development.

“Roma Street Station is a key link between the city centre, Roma Street Parklands, Spring Hill’s schools, Caxton Street, the Petrie Barracks, Suncorp Stadium, and the cultural precinct at South Bank,” Ms Trad said.

When complete the new station is expected to be used by more than 230,000 commuters every week, the equivalent of over four capacity crowds at Suncorp Stadium.

“However, the Brisbane Transit Centre is well past its prime, but by 2025 this end of the City will be totally transformed,”Ms Trad said.

Early works will start in 2019, with the Brisbane Transit Centre and Hotel Jen to be demolished in late-2020.

Planning for Brisbane Live is well underway with representatives from AEG Worldwide visiting Brisbane from their Los Angeles base this week to meet with the local powerbrokers pulling the Brisbane Live business case together.

Consultancy firm Deloitte have also recently been appointed to the project along with one of the world’s leading sport and architecture firms, Populous to design the arena complex.

Populous have a long track record for designing both local and international sporting venues including Suncorp Stadium, T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas and London’s O2 Arena.

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In April Populous revealed plans for two new ‘next-generation venues’ in London and Las Vegas. The two near-identical 18,000-seat spherical arenas will host both music and esport events for AEG’s rival entertainment company the Madison Square Garden Company (MSG).

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The 18,000 seat MSG Spheres which will be covered in what MSG describes as the “largest and highest resolution media display on Earth” will be equipped with ‘game-changing technologies’ that push the limits of connectivity, acoustics, video, and content distribution.

To date, Brisbane has seen only evolving conceptual design renderings of the Brisbane Live arena however that is set to change with the detailed business case due by the end of the year.

Arena concept design evolution

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“With an 18,000 seat world-class arena as its centrepiece, the Roma Street precinct, just like the LA Live complex, will become Queensland’s premier entertainment venue hosting major live concerts and world class sporting events right in heart of the city.

“I’m proud that in the Budget I handed down this week we invested more than $700 million over the coming year to build Cross River Rail.

“Without Cross River Rail, this type of urban renewal simply wouldn’t be possible, which is why the Palaszczuk Government has stepped up to fund this transformational piece of infrastructure.”

“This is a project that will transform the south-east by creating a turn-up-and-go transport system for the whole of South-East Queensland – taking thousands of cars off our roads and getting people home and to work faster.

“Without it, we won’t be able to build the future vital connections to our SEQ region,”Ms Trad said.

It is not yet known whether many of the original masterplan’s ancillary uses such as the proposed Jacaranda Grove or a new central water-based parkland area would be incorporated into the design, or become added at a possible later stage.