Friday, June 10, 2011

Ekka Showgrounds To Become Apartment Getto

The 22-hectare showgrounds will be trimmed. Five and a half hectares will be transformed to residential apartments - 2000 across 12 buildings, with 145,000 square metres of commercial office space across six buildings.


Glen Steedman is the project director of Lend Lease's $2.9 billion project. He said the images of the first apartments - around 300 one and two-bedroom apartments with a small number of three-bedroom apartments - would go to the market in August.


Originally these were going to be in 10-storey apartment blocks, but testing of Brisbane's CBD market found a "courtyard" style with six or seven apartments per storey was more appropriate for the designers, architects Cox Rayner. They will now be offered in six five- and six-storey complexes behind the Jubilee Hotel.


Mr Steedman said Lend Lease is convinced these small changes will suit Brisbane's inner-city market.

"One and two-bedroom apartments react best to the demographic that lives in this area; the professionals, the students who want to live close to the city and close to the Valley," he said.


Mr Steedman believes the 1900 to 2000 units that will eventually be built will house just over 3000 permanent residents and around 12,000 people will work in the area.

Source: Brisbane Times

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