How Landscaping Drives Long-Term Asset Value and Returns
In an era where the built environment is increasingly competing for the attention of discerning renters, visitors, and investors, the question is no longer simply what a development offers—but how it makes people feel.
At South/City/SQ in Woolloongabba, Brisbane, that feeling has been carefully cultivated from the ground up. And landscaping is at the heart of it.
Developed by Pellicano in partnership with Perri Projects, South/City/SQ represents a new benchmark in precinct-style urban development.
With residential apartments, a hotel, curated retail, restaurants, and resort-style pools woven into a single vibrant destination, the project is as much about lifestyle as it is about built form.
What ties it all together—quite literally—is the landscape.
Amenity as investment, not afterthought
For too long, landscaping has been treated as the finishing touch. A line item to be trimmed when budgets tighten. South/City/SQ tells a different story—one that developers, asset owners, and investors would do well to pay attention to.
When people choose where to live, dine, or spend their leisure time, they are not choosing a building. They are choosing an experience.
Manicured gardens, shaded outdoor dining, resort-quality poolscapes and lush green retreats don’t just elevate the aesthetic of a precinct—they drive occupancy, increase dwell time, attract premium tenants and command stronger rental returns.
Landscape amenity is, in the truest sense, a value creation strategy.
Martin Brothers’ experience across major mixed-use precincts reinforces what great developers already know intuitively: well-designed green space increases the perceived and actual value of an asset.
In a competitive leasing environment, lifestyle is the differentiator. Families, young professionals, and hospitality-driven visitors are increasingly drawn to precincts that offer a sense of place—somewhere that feels alive, considered, and worth returning to.
Landscaping is the infrastructure of that feeling.
A collaboration built for the long game
Pellicano’s vision for South/City/SQ required a landscape partner who could match their ambition and grow alongside the project. That partner has been Martin Brothers—engaged across every stage of the precinct’s landscape works in what has become a defining 10-year collaboration.
From the earliest stages of the development, Martin Brothers has been instrumental in bringing Pellicano’s landscape vision to life.
This is not a relationship built on a single scope of works and a handshake at completion. It is an evolving partnership, one that has deepened as the precinct itself has grown and matured.
Each new stage has presented new opportunity—and Martin Brothers has met each one with the craftsmanship and commitment the project demands.
Pellicano head of property, Queensland, Michael Kent said from the very beginning “our vision for South/City/SQ was to create thousands of square metres of meaningful amenity—spaces where people would gather, relax, and connect”.
“Landscape was never an afterthought; it was always central to how the precinct would come to life, whether across the rooftop gardens or along South Street at the heart of the development,” Kent said.
“We’ve been proud to partner with Martin Brothers over the past decade to help bring that vision to life. This has been a long-term commitment, not just to a single stage, but to creating a cohesive and enduring landscape across the entire precinct.
“What we’ve achieved together at South/City/SQ sets the benchmark for how we will continue to approach landscape across future stages and Pellicano projects more broadly.”
This kind of long-term contractor relationship is itself a strategic asset. Continuity of vision, accumulated site knowledge, and a shared understanding of where a development is headed ensures that the landscape evolves cohesively rather than in disconnected phases.
The result is a precinct that feels unified, intentional, and alive at every turn.
The Secret Garden: Amenity that rewards discovery
The most recent addition to South/City/SQ’s landscape offering is The Secret Garden—a lush, secluded green retreat nestled within the broader precinct.
In an urban context defined by activation and energy, The Secret Garden offers something increasingly rare: a moment of genuine quiet and beauty.
It is a masterclass in what thoughtful landscaping can achieve. Rather than simply filling a space, it creates one—a destination within a destination.
For residents, it offers sanctuary. For visitors, it offers discovery. And for the asset as a whole, it adds another layer of distinctiveness that simply cannot be replicated by competitors overnight.
Designed as an immersive, nature-rich space where people can explore, discover, and spend time together, The Secret Garden rewards visitors differently across the day.
By day, a whimsical garden trail invites wandering and discovery. By night, the space transforms into a sensory escape through carefully considered lighting and sound.
The Secret Garden also speaks to the broader philosophy underpinning the South/City/SQ landscape strategy: that great amenity tells a story.
Every garden bed, every shaded walkway, every carefully selected plant species contributes to an overarching narrative of quality and care—one that residents and visitors absorb, even if they never consciously articulate it.
The takeaway for developers and investors
South/City/SQ is a compelling case study in the commercial logic of landscape investment. In a precinct where the lifestyle offering is this considered, the asset does not simply attract people—it retains them.
Long-term tenants. Repeat visitors. Premium positioning that holds its value as the market shifts.
For developers and investors looking to maximise the long-term performance of an asset, the lesson is clear: landscaping is not a cost to be minimised. It is a return to be realised.
And with the right partner—one with the vision, expertise, and commitment to see a project through from foundation to flourishing—the landscape becomes one of the most powerful tools in a development’s arsenal.
Martin Brothers and Pellicano are proving that together at South/City/SQ. One garden at a time.
The Urban Developer is proud to partner with Martin Brothers to deliver this article to you. In doing so, we can continue to publish our daily news, information, insights and opinion to you, our valued readers.
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