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The multibillion-dollar Waterfront Brisbane precinct is set to significantly alter the city skyline.
During a tour of the building site by this masthead, the sheer scale of the project and the frantic pace being set to complete it becomes immediately apparent.
With sparks flying from welders and the din of heavy machinery, workers are at the Eagle Street site for almost 20 hours a day – in three shifts from about 6am to 1am – to make up time following a spate of bad weather.
The first tower, now on track to be completed in late 2028, will be among the tallest in the CBD.
“This is a city-shaping project, you don’t get these very often,” developer Dexus’ project director, Matthew Beasley, says.
Standing on scaffolding and wearing a hard hat at the spot that will eventually become the lobby entrance off Eagle Street, he points down to towering concrete pillars that will support the structure.
“I don’t think people appreciate how big the podium is … they don’t quite appreciate the scale,” he says.
Located on the site of the former Eagle Street Pier, Waterfront Brisbane will include a promenade along the river with restaurants, cafes and public open grassed spaces.
A screen will be erected to broadcast major events live, including the 2032 Olympic Games.
Before even being completed, about 70 per cent of the 130,000 square metres of office space in the north tower is already accounted for.
The tenants include Deloitte, Colliers and law firms DLA Piper, Allens, Minter Ellison, and Gadens.
The tower itself will have several unusual luxuries, including an amphitheatre for business addresses, a coolroom for those cycling or walking to work, 52 showers, and infrared saunas.
“It’s just thinking about what are those things that make people’s day more productive … but then also making sure we’ve got the facilities that encourage people to be active,” Beasley says.
It will also have a food court overlooking the river and an underground car park.
Dexus plans to build a second slightly shorter tower directly next door when the first is completed, though a start date is yet to be set.
Construction of the full project will cost about $2.5 billion. Beasley says the price of some materials and their transportation has gone up since the war in the Middle East began.
So far, the work has focused heavily on the tower’s intricate core.
It is only about five storeys tall but is anchored by what is “basically a seven-storey building” underground reaching about 30 metres below the surface.
The north tower will be built around this structure and is expected to rapidly expand skyward from July.
“Things in the next six months are going to change dramatically,” Beasley says.
When work began, the soft earth bordering the river needed to be pumped with concrete grout to make it solid enough to prevent machinery from sinking and to keep the pillars in place.
Dexus closed a stretch of the Brisbane River Walk in 2023 for the development, frustrating many residents whose walking and cycling routes were disrupted.
It reopened in February with a widened and resurfaced path, but the route is not yet reconnected to the construction site.
Beasley said designers focused their efforts on bringing residents closer to the river, in contrast to the former Eagle Street Pier complex, which put them several storeys above the water.
“What this project is doing is just really strengthening the connection … by bringing you down more gradually,” he says.
“It was all about making a statement and creating a space that really showcases what Brisbane is about.”
The site was once marshland where Indigenous Australians gathered food and hunted.
From about 1860 to 1960, it served as ship wharves, and was later converted into a parking lot before being developed into a dining and entertainment hub in 1989.
During the construction of Waterfront Brisbane, the wharves’ original pillars – believed to be about 160 years old – were found buried.
They have been preserved and put in the foyer of the nearby Eagle Street One building. They will go on display in the new tower as part of a history exhibit when it is completed.
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