The Gabba underground: Proposal to sink Stanley Street for new urban village

Stanley Street should be taken underground to make Woolloongabba a vibrant pedestrian-friendly urban village, two local design firms has suggested ahead of the precinct’s arena-led transformation.

Inertia Engineering, along with landscape architecture and urban design specialists O2 Landscape Architecture, have come up with a long-term Woolloongabba Village vision.

The proposal would transform the precinct into what they said would be a walkable, shaded and economically productive urban village supporting housing, jobs, heritage, green space and active transport.

The proposal allowed for more than 2500 new homes – including social and affordable housing – an expanded food and beverage precinct, new hotels and up to eight hectares of public realm and green space.

Inertia managing director Scott Clements said Stanley Street, near the new arena, would be reclaimed for a new public domain, with the existing bus station repurposed into a tunnel for both bus and regular traffic.

“Stanley Street is where businesses go to die,” he said.

“It’s four or five lanes of traffic, all one way, hardly any trees and people just don’t want to hang around there so therefore businesses don’t succeed.”

Clements said if the area could be redesigned to link the historical Woolloongabba Stanley Street high street with the new arena precinct – with parks, forecourts, additional dining and event new housing above the existing roadway – the Gabba could become a standout destination.

The Crisafulli government has made land next to the under-construction Cross River Rail station available to the private sector to deliver a 17,000-seat indoor arena in time for the Brisbane 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Expressions of interest for that project closed in January.

Clements said even more so than Victoria Park on the other side of the river, Woolloongabba provided the best opportunity for Olympic-catalysed transformation.

“Vic Park gets all the press, because it’s the main stadium, but the Gabba is actually the one that’s the full urban redevelopment opportunity in a spot where we’re building a multibillion-dollar Cross River Rail station that probably will be completely underutilised if we don’t do something around there,” he said.

“You build a station because you want to get used every day, so you need to have increased density of population there to justify it.

“Take some cars off the road and get people travelling quickly to the CBD and beyond.”

The work on Stanley Street should be completed in time for the Brisbane 2032 Olympics, Clements said, while the rest of the vision could be delivered after the Gabba cricket stadium was demolished post-Games.

“We’re losing what really should be the second CBD, given that we’ve got the major transport infrastructure going in there and its connection to everything else, including the south-east freeway,” he said.

“It can be either be another CBD, or at least a huge residential precinct with all the amenities – as long as it’s connected, it makes sense.”

O2LA director Nader Ibrahim said that connectivity was the foundational principle of their vision.

“Connection is the foundational principle of what we are doing here, and what Brisbane should be doing more of,” he said.

“Right now, Woolloongabba feels like a place you pass through. This proposal turns it into a place you arrive at, stay in and belong to, with shade, landscape, culture and everyday amenity at its core.”

Ibrahim said shade, walkability and green space were “not optional extras” in a subtropical city such as Brisbane.

“This is a once-in-a-century opportunity to reshape Woolloongabba into a people-first precinct that reflects Brisbane’s climate, lifestyle and identity,” he said.