Philip Usher Constructions has lodged plans for Mark Lane, a major mixed use precinct on a consolidated 1.27 hectare landholding at the meeting point of Woolloongabba, Kangaroo Point and East Brisbane. Designed by Woods Bagot, the first stage alone would deliver 953 apartments, a hotel of around 177 rooms and a wrap of retail, community and civic space across three towers of 50, 34 and 11 storeys connected by a landscaped podium.
Lodged with Economic Development Queensland in May 2026 and declared properly made on 1 June, the application covers “Precinct 1” of a larger Woods Bagot master plan. Across its three precincts and five towers, the full Mark Lane vision is reported to carry close to 1,759 apartments, a scale that would make it one of the biggest single owner sites in the new Woolloongabba Priority Development Area with the assembly of sites said to be 20+ years in the making.
The towers sit on a single, tightly held supersite that Philip Usher Constructions has spent years stitching together along Mark Lane, Main Street and Vulture Street. Owned almost entirely by the one landowner, the site gives the developer the rare ability to plan a genuine precinct, with public laneways, courtyards and a continuous pedestrian route, rather than a single isolated tower.
At the heart of the proposal are three towers, each given a distinct job. Tower 1, the tallest at 50 storeys, addresses the prominent Main Street and Vulture Street intersection and is conceived as a slender urban marker for Woolloongabba, with recessed balconies and amenity decks at Levels 36 and 49: a lap pool, dining and lounge rooms, and a work from home suite capturing views back to South Brisbane and the city.
Tower 2 steps down to 34 storeys with a stronger horizontal expression, while an 11 storey hotel sits within the podium and turns its lobby to the public realm. Between them they hold 953 apartments, 683 in Tower 1 and 270 in Tower 2, across a one to three bedroom mix weighted toward two bedroom homes, plus roughly 177 short term accommodation rooms. (The lodged development table measures the towers as up to 52 and 36 storeys, and the hotel as 12, counted from the lower Vulture Street frontage where the site falls away.)
The towers rise from a continuous podium that reads as five storeys to Mark Lane and seven to Vulture Street, its parking fully screened behind layered façades so the street edge stays focused on people and landscape. Woods Bagot has threaded a continuous public route through the site, the “ant trail”, a porous ground plane of “city rooms” and courtyards linking the corner of Leopold Street and Mark Lane through to the busy Vulture and Main Street intersection, in step with the PDA’s Creek to Cliffs Green Corridor.
Anchoring it are two new civic spaces, a central Mark Lane Courtyard and a Community Square, animated by a café, bar and restaurant, retail tenancies, a childcare centre and a flexible community use floated as a possible library.
Architecturally, Woods Bagot describes “a calm and enduring architectural presence.” The façades take a contemporary reading of the crafted timber shutter drawn from the Queenslander tradition, varied across the buildings for depth, solar shading and human scale, while the material palette references the Brisbane Tuff of the Kangaroo Point cliffs and the suburb’s enduring heritage masonry, in tones of “sediment, earth and clay.” Planting is designed to climb from the podium and hotel roofs up the stepped tower crowns, reinforcing a subtropical identity.
Location does a lot of the heavy lifting. The site sits roughly 400 metres from the Woolloongabba Busway Interchange and the future Cross River Rail Woolloongabba station, with pedestrian links to The Gabba and the planned Brisbane Live arena precinct. The application leans into that, explicitly positioning the hotel as “a place to stay” for the Brisbane 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games and beyond.
The application is now under assessment by Economic Development Queensland. If approved, Stage 1 would deliver the basement, podium, public realm, Tower 1 and the childcare centre first, with Tower 2 and the hotel to follow.
Project Rundown
| Development Parameter | Proposed Development |
|---|---|
| Project Name | Mark Lane (Precinct 1) |
| Address | 18 to 52 Mark Lane, 803 to 811 Main Street and 350 to 352 Vulture Street, Woolloongabba QLD 4102 |
| Development Type | Mixed use: residential, hotel, retail and community |
| Site Area | Approximately 12,773 m² (DA site); Precinct 1 approximately 11,293 m² |
| Height | Three towers of 50, 34 and 11 storeys (the lodged development table counts 52, 36 and 12 storeys from the lower Vulture Street frontage) Tower 1: 198.7m Tower 2: 140.7m Tower 3: 63.9m |
| Apartments | x953 total Tower 1: x683 – 1 Bed x235 – 2 Bed x423 – 3 Bed x25 Tower 2: x270 – 1 Bed: x54 – 2 Bed x106 – 3 Bed x55 – 4 Bed x55 Hotel Tower: x177 – Premium rooms x47 – Standard rooms x120 – Suite x10 |
| Hotel | Approximately 177 short term accommodation rooms |
| Other Uses | Childcare centre, community use or library, food and drink, bar, shop, function facility and office |
| Public Realm | Approximately 2,624 m² of privately owned public open space, including the Mark Lane Courtyard and Community Square |
| Car Parking | Approximately 1,066 car spaces and 1,202 bicycle spaces |
| Master Plan | Stage 1 of a vision spanning three precincts, around five towers and roughly 1,759 apartments |
| Developer | Philip Usher Constructions |
| Architect | Woods Bagot |
| Town Planner, Landscape and Heritage | Urbis |
| Sustainability | Solar PV: This feature is not specified or detailed within the text of the report. Energy Efficiency: The design utilizes building layouts that reduce internal thermal stress, leveraging external shading and communal work-from-home suites to help decrease daily commuting energy and building reliance on mechanical cooling. Water Recycling: Rainwater harvesting systems would capture and store stormwater in on-site irrigation tanks specifically for ongoing landscape maintenance. Water Conservation: Water-sensitive urban design is supported by using irrigation networks that supply targeted water to the precinct’s extensive plant and park spaces. Landscaping / Deep Soil: The project proposes 4,676 square metres of total landscaped area (43.9% of the site), which includes 243 square metres of dedicated deep planting for large canopy trees, a 360 square metre at-grade courtyard, and extensive vertical, podium, and tower-edge greening. Active Transport (End-of-Trip): The transport plan includes 1,155 total bicycle spaces (924 residential and 231 visitor parks), formal pedestrian footpaths on all surrounding streets, and a cross-block pedestrian link connecting the site to the Kangaroo Point Cliffs and local train stations. EV Charging: This infrastructure is not specified or detailed within the application. Waste Management: Rather than using a single chute with an electronic diverter mechanism, the design specifies two distinct, co-located chutes operating side-by-side one dedicated entirely to general waste and the other dedicated to commingled recycling Green Roof: Elevated landscaping is heavily incorporated, featuring a Level 5 podium leisure lawn and dedicated rooftop caps on Levels 34 and 49 with feature trees and cascading plants designed to reduce urban heat and skyline visual bulk. Cross Ventilation: Tower structures are strategically positioned to maximize natural cross-breezes, integrating operable louvres to support passive indoor cooling and tenant comfort. Thermal Mass: The physical bulk, structured concrete podiums, and deep tower facades act to regulate internal temperature extremes, while layered exterior facade treatments screen the internal above-ground parking levels. |
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Founded in 1987 by Philip Usher, who started out as a 15 year old carpenter, Philip Usher Constructions is a privately held Brisbane builder and developer based at Hillcrest in the city’s south. Across nearly four decades it has worked as both builder and developer on townhouse, high rise and residential projects throughout South East Queensland, from the master planned Seasons community at Sinnamon Park and a retirement village at Holland Park West to house and land estates at Runcorn and Lawnton.
Images: artist’s impressions and architectural drawings by Woods Bagot, lodged with the Economic Development Queensland development application (DEV-2026-WGB-4763). Renders are indicative and subject to design development.
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FINALLY! ANOTHER SKYSCRAPER PROPOSAL! It’s been MONTHS since we’ve had one, and, might I add, it looks absolutely stunning!
I can’t celebrate another skyscraper – an already contested skyline in this area, yet another does nothing to enhance the overall experience of the city skyscape. Does it need to be this tall…really?
So what’s going to happen to the 1800s era heritage listed dwelling on Mark Lane which sits within the footprint of this development – are they going to build this apartment block around it? It wasn’t mentioned in your article and I’d be very interested to know.