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”.
The Lancini Group proposal as part of Northshore Hamilton riverfront precinct
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
DeveloperWhat they would buildGRAYAAbout 435 homes, a 50-bed hotel, and ground floor retail and commercial spaceJoe Adsett DevelopmentsAbout 430 homes in a staged two-tower development, with retail and commercial tenanciesRed & CoAbout 440 homes in a staged two-tower development, including a 25 level, 200-apartment tower with a rooftop pool, river views and wellness amenitiesGreyburn (with Immerse)About 402 homes across four medium-rise buildings, with ground floor retailLancini (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 usesAcross the five sitesAbout 2,200 homes and 21,600 m² of retail and commercial space over 6.1 hectares at 60 to 102 MacArthur Avenue
View GRAYA’s Northshore Hamilton post on Instagram
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.
Concept map showing a 1.4-kilometre rail extension from Doomben to Northshore Hamilton, including a 900-metre elevated section, a new station and 3.5 kilometres of track duplication between Eagle Junction and Doomben. Alignment and precinct boundaries are indicative.
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.