One of Brisbane’s last big pieces of riverfront industrial land is about to become a suburb of its own. The Queensland Government has announced that five local builders will share five sites at Northshore Hamilton to deliver about 2,200 new homes, a hotel, a supermarket and more than 21,000 square metres of shops and dining on the north bank of the Brisbane River.
Delivered through Economic Development Queensland, the release hands 6.1 hectares at 60 to 102 MacArthur Avenue to GRAYA, Joe Adsett Developments, Greyburn, Lancini and Red & Co. The State is contributing $154 million in enabling infrastructure, new roads, sewer and water, to ready the sites. Construction is expected to start in 2028, with the first residents moving in from 2031, inside the run-up to the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
GRAYA has the most mixed of the five briefs: about 435 homes alongside a 50-bed hotel and ground floor retail and dining. Chief executive and co-founder Rob Gray said the aim was a riverfront precinct built for the local climate.
Our ambition is to deliver a subtropical, architecturally led precinct on the river, designed for the Queensland climate and built to contribute to Northshore for decades to come.
Rob Gray, CEO and Co-Founder, GRAYA
Joe Adsett Developments would build about 430 homes in a staged two-tower scheme with retail and commercial tenancies. Founder Joe Adsett, who is Hamilton born and bred, said the project was personal: “What makes Northshore particularly meaningful is that it is also my backyard.”
Red & Co, fresh from starting its $800 million Duet Portside towers nearby, takes on about 440 homes across two staged towers, including a 25 level, 200-apartment building with a rooftop pool, river views and wellness amenities. Development manager Ben Woolhouse called it “a unique opportunity to deliver an exceptional destination that brings the precinct’s vision to life”.
Greyburn, working with development partner Immerse, would deliver about 402 homes across four medium-rise buildings over ground floor retail, a lower-slung counterpoint to the towers around it. The largest single brief goes to Lancini, in partnership with James Group, which would build a new community heart: a 15,000 square metre shopping and commercial hub anchored by a full-line supermarket, with room for medical, childcare, education and community uses, alongside about 484 homes. Laurence and Tomas Lancini described Northshore as “one of Brisbane’s great opportunities to create a truly master-planned development”.
Deputy Premier Jarrod Bleijie framed the release as “the beginning of a major river-lution of Brisbane’s northside”, turning former industrial land into housing, with Member for Clayfield Tim Nicholls welcoming the precinct “moving forward with new housing”.
The release does not carry a mandated affordable-housing component; the Government removed that requirement last year, arguing the mandate had stalled projects, while the Opposition has argued the mix is weighted to the top of the market. On any measure, though, it is a large and fast addition to inner-Brisbane housing supply.
The five sites
| Developer | What they would build |
|---|---|
| GRAYA | About 435 homes, a 50-bed hotel, and ground floor retail and commercial space |
| Joe Adsett Developments | About 430 homes in a staged two-tower development, with retail and commercial tenancies |
| Red & Co | About 440 homes in a staged two-tower development, including a 25 level, 200-apartment tower with a rooftop pool, river views and wellness amenities |
| Greyburn (with Immerse) | About 402 homes across four medium-rise buildings, with ground floor retail |
| Lancini (with James Group) | About 484 homes plus a 15,000 m² shopping and commercial hub anchored by a full-line supermarket, with potential medical, childcare, education and community uses |
| Across the five sites | About 2,200 homes and 21,600 m² of retail and commercial space over 6.1 hectares at 60 to 102 MacArthur Avenue |
Northshore Hamilton is Queensland’s largest waterfront urban renewal project, a 304-hectare, roughly 40-year transformation of the Hamilton reach managed by Economic Development Queensland. At full build-out the precinct is planned to hold about 14,000 homes and 24,500 residents and to contribute more than $14 billion to the economy. It has also been central to Brisbane’s 2032 planning, having previously been earmarked for the Olympic athletes’ village.
Separately, the precinct is also getting a permanent food destination. A new curated market, Hamilton Markets, is planned for 5 Hercules Street, styled on Melbourne’s Queen Victoria Market. The undercover venue would run about 43 stalls across fresh food, artisan produce, specialty retail and hospitality, opening Wednesday to Sunday with cooking demonstrations and seasonal programming. The site sold in June 2026 for about $8 million, and the operator is now calling for traders.
Editor’s view: the missing piece is mass transit
The scale here is a genuine win for housing supply, and the subtropical, riverfront design language is a clear step up on the industrial land it replaces. But this website has said before, that Northshore Hamilton is being filled with people faster than it is being connected.
These 2,200 homes sit inside a precinct planned for roughly 14,000 dwellings and 24,500 residents, and there is still no high-capacity public transport committed to serve them. For now the precinct leans on Kingsford Smith Drive, buses and the CityCat.
Anyone who drives Kingsford Smith Drive at peak knows it is close to capacity today. It is fair, and not anti-development, to ask how it copes in ten years with tens of thousands more residents and workers and no rail. Expecting a precinct this size to move on a ‘banana bus’, a CityCat and gridlocked traffic is not a transport plan.
There is an obvious and comparatively cheap fix. The Doomben line ends about 1.4 kilometres north of Northshore. Duplicating and extending it into the precinct would, on Rail Back on Track’s numbers, require no residential land resumptions and could carry tens of thousands of people an hour. Regardless of the 2032 Games, a rail transport spine for these future residents should be mandated in any future planning.
Figures are drawn from the Queensland Government statement of 6 September 2026 and Economic Development Queensland. The Editor’s View is opinion and reflects Brisbane Development’s ongoing coverage of transport at Northshore Hamilton.
I know we have a housing crisis but this precinct should include affordable housing and also more than 50 hotel beds. This area is so close to both the cruise terminal as well as the airport.
Is there any indication in this press release of land being set aside for future public transport?
I know the author has their own little pet project (Doomben line extension to Hamilton), but I’m thinking more along the lines of a widened MacArthur Ave (or leaving strips of land each side of Curtin Ave West) to accommodate future bus lanes and bus-stop shelters.
With the state dealing with Olympics costs (and likely overruns) It’s more likely a local govt solution will be addressing the future public transport for this area. You’d want to hope land is acquired now whilst it’s cheap rather than waiting until property improvements push the value up.
Busses are not the answer, Greg. We need more future-focussed thinking that whacking another bus lane on an already completely congested road/corridor. For example; a CRR East-West link, starting in Hamilton and going through Bulimba, Woolloongabba, West End and finishing at Toowong would be a vital (albeit costly) option. This gutless government would never, though.
Yes I agree on busses not being the answer: there really needs to be some kind of high capacity public transport to service the entire length of the river. Whether that be train line extensions, a future tunnel & overpass/ bridge metro line.
i’d just like to point out that it’s never going to happen anytime soon. Not with the Olympics budget to deal with, and definitely not before the whole North Shore area is built up. That kind of forward thinking has not had a good track record in this city: it’s just easier to declare a few new City Cat stops as a means to address any future congestion issues.
The best you can hope for is wider space set aside now for bus lanes and bus stops. This will at least provide enough land corridor for a higher-capacity transport solution when (if?) that eventuates.
I can remember when we were promised a public swimming pool on the river to support sport and recreation in the precinct. That concept seems to have disappeared. And let’s hope the people who buy at Northshore understand that they are right under a flight path and with that comes a good deal of aircraft noise.
Knowing the current LNP government, there likely isn’t any consideration for public transport let alone a RAIL extension. They seem allergic to trains and I can’t understand why. Apart from that I hope the renderings of some of these buildings are only indicative as they look boring/dated. Hopefully it doesn’t become another docklands like Melbourne with all the soulless architecture and streetscapes that ensue.
I, for one, would like to see some real guts from this government (or any successive mob) that takes action on expanding on the (STILL UNFINISHED) CRR. A CRR East-West line, starting in Hamilton and going through Bulimba, Woolloongabba, West End and finishing at Toowong would be great.
Would it make more sense then for a completely different train system to run that route, similar to how Sydney metro is completely different from their suburban rail? This is all fanciful at the end of the day. If you want access to a proper metro system in your (or my) lifetime then you’ll have to move to a city that already has one. 🙁