UPCOMING EVENT - LAND LEASE DEVELOPMENT SUMMIT 10 DAYS TO GO
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As Brisbane and South-East Queensland move closer to hosting the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games, one of the most complex and high-stakes elements of infrastructure is accommodation.
Athletes’ villages, hotels and short-term housing sit at the intersection of public need, private opportunity and long-term legacy.
For government stakeholders and private developers alike, these projects have a dual challenge: designing for millions of athletes, officials, media and visitors for a few weeks in 2032, as well as leaving quality assets for generations to come.
This article—the third in a four-part series exploring the road to Brisbane 2032—explores key considerations for successful Games accommodation that lasts.
Games accommodation must remain fit-for-purpose and commercially viable after 2032. For Brisbane, this means that the RNA Showgrounds Athlete Village (Bowen Hills), Northshore Hamilton athletes’ village, Gold Coast’s Royal Pines village and the Sunshine Coast Horizon Centre village in Maroochydore need to be designed with future conversion firmly in mind.
Unlike Olympic sporting venues, which are often reused for future events, accommodation must quickly pivot to serve broader urban needs, typically as build-to-sell or build-to-rent residential, student housing, aged care, social and affordable housing, or mixed-use developments.
But layouts designed for high-density, short-term stays don’t always translate easily to long-term housing. Retrofitting services, upgrading finishes or reconfiguring floor plans can be costly if not planned for upfront.
Success lies in holding both the Games setup and the post-Games conversion in mind from the start and throughout all design choices. London 2012 offers a benchmark.
The East Village at Stratford—initially housing 17,000 athletes—transitioned into more than 2800 new homes, including affordable housing.
Paris 2024’s Seine-Saint-Denis village was designed to become a mixed residential and commercial precinct serving 6000 new residents and 6000 workers.
Proponents should test design against multiple lifecycle scenarios, mindful of opportunities that could reduce conversion costs later—such as modular construction, separable buildings and flexible layouts.
Early estimation of lifecycle costs across both the temporary and subsequent phases increases the likelihood of getting feasibility studies and funding decisions across the line and achieving buy-in from stakeholders.
Accommodation developments for the Games are being planned now, but many won’t break ground for several years and won’t reach completion until the end of the decade.
The market conditions in which Brisbane’s villages and hotels are conceived today will not be the same as those in which they’re delivered.
Projects such as the Woolloongabba Hotel Towers, Broadbeach Hotel Tower (Manors Gate Group) and the Mooloolaba Hotel may not open until the late 2020s or even 2030.
London delivered its village during the fallout from the global financial crisis, while Paris grappled with inflation and supply chain volatility post-Covid.
Brisbane faces its own uncertainty, with high population growth, a national housing crisis, volatile interest rates and stretched construction markets.
The alternative to guesswork is up-to-the-minute forecasting to plan around real-world market conditions. Real-time models can offer insight into changing costs of materials, new lending conditions, shifts in residential demand and other market factors that will make or break feasibility.
Developers can test sensitivities and assess risk profiles before committing to a project structure or delivery model – underpinning decisive action.
The lead-up to 2032 will see intense competition for skilled labour, materials and supply chains. Pressure to award contracts quickly can lead to poor decisions around selection, sequencing and terms.
In a stretched construction industry, quality can drop and delays creep in, especially if the wrong builder is picked.
For developers and governments alike, the risks of defects, overruns and reputational damage are too big to ignore.
Queensland’s recognition of the need for an alternative lodging strategy involving options such as cruise ships highlights the scale of the challenge– not every bed can be purpose-built, and the Games will require creativity, flexibility and resilience in delivery.
Overlay this with the South Bank cultural and hospitality upgrades and the Mount Coot-tha eco-tourism precinct and the picture becomes clear: competition for labour and supply chains will be fierce, and quality cannot be compromised.
There’s always a danger that tenders could be underbaked to win work, risking overruns and variations.
London mitigated these risks with strict scope control and detailed milestone tracking. Paris leaned heavily on modular and flexible solutions to keep accommodation on program.
Brisbane must combine both approaches—with rigorous benchmarking, capable contractors, and tight accountability across every scope, spend and delivery milestone.
South-East Queensland is one of Australia’s fastest growing areas but it’s already facing a significant housing crisis. To address this, planning Brisbane’s Games accommodation must be far more than an exercise in logistics.
Post-Games conversion of the Northshore Hamilton village into a mixed retail and leisure precinct, or the RNA Showgrounds village into high-quality residential, could unlock long-term value.
Build-to-rent projects at Indooroopilly, Valley, Newstead and Quay Street could absorb demand for long-term rental housing, while tourism-oriented assets like the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast villages and the Broadbeach Hotel Tower can expand the region’s visitor economy.
London showed how Games accommodation could regenerate entire neighbourhoods. Paris took the baton further, embedding sustainability and social inclusion into its legacy plans. Brisbane has the chance to build both, unlocking supply and addressing the housing crisis while creating mixed, vibrant communities that support growth across the southeast.
This opportunity won’t realise itself. Now is the time to ensure robust and strategic planning that balances risk and opportunity within a long-term vision, so that what’s built for 2032 can continue to deliver for generations.
Jack Shelley is a state director in Queensland at WT. He has worked across several of Queensland’s highest-profile projects and clients, including the Brisbane 2032 Olympics 100-day Review, Department of Transport and Main Roads, Powerlink, Queensland Hydro, Seqwater, Sequana, and Sunwater. As a chartered member of the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), Jack holds deep expertise in quantity surveying, cost estimation from first principles, commercial management, and cost control.
Amy Chen is the Queensland Lead for highrise residential (including build-to-rent, student accommodation, and mixed-use), industrial, and commercial sectors at WT. She brings extensive experience in cost planning, cost control, procurement, and contract administration across a range of sectors. Amy has a strong track record in managing complex development projects, with a focus on optimising resources, aligning stakeholder objectives, and delivering on time and within budget.
The Urban Developer is proud to partner with WT 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.
WT is a leading international project advisory firm with more than 75 years of multi-sector experience. Our clients can tap into the collective thinking of over 2000 of the best people in the industry, operating from 70-plus offices throughout Australia, New Zealand, Asia, India, Middle East, North America, Africa, the UK and Europe. In Australia, we support our clients across property, construction and infrastructure with an award-winning team of 500 specialists in portfolio and program advisory, cost management and quantity surveying, commercial advisory, carbon and sustainability, asset and facilities management, and digital solutions.
