The Brisbane Entertainment Centre at Boondall has cost countless hours of concertgoers’ lives in its car parks over four decades, but those same vast expanses of bitumen may one day become the foundation of an entirely new community.
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The venue has welcomed more than 19 million visitors since opening in February 1986, and is widely expected to be approaching the final chapter of its run. The Entertainment Centre is expected to host an Olympic event during the 2032 Brisbane Games, most likely European handball, but that competition is widely tipped to be its curtain call.
Once the privately built Gabba Arena opens as Brisbane’s new premier indoor venue, the 64-hectare Boondall site will be ripe for transformation. It’s the kind of opportunity that comes along once in a generation, according to industry experts.
A senior urban planning director at Colliers said she could not imagine a scenario in which the Entertainment Centre survives in its current form. She described the site as extraordinarily rare, which is a large parcel of land serviced by two train stations and the Gateway Motorway, with the potential to create an entirely new community from the ground up. She likened the coming debate to that surrounding the old Toombul shopping centre site, where everyone in the industry seems to have a strong view about what should happen.
That redevelopment conversation has been given fresh urgency by the Queensland Land Activation Program, run through Economic Development Queensland, which is calling on private developers to identify underutilised publicly owned land suitable for housing. Industry experts say the Boondall site is an obvious candidate.
One urban planning expert said Boondall would have developers knocking on EDQ’s door, but cautioned that housing should not be the only lens through which the site’s potential is viewed. He pointed to Brisbane Technology Park at Eight Mile Plains as a model worth considering — a long-term project delivering employment close to where people live, generating roughly 300 jobs per hectare mostly through staged private investment. He said the developable portion of Boondall, after environmental constraints are taken into account, could support something very similar.
A director at planning firm URPS, who previously contributed to a conceptual master plan for the site, sees an opportunity to create something genuinely distinctive. The concept he described was Brisbane’s first subtropical garden suburb, drawing on garden city principles first developed by British planner Ebenezer Howard in the late 19th century, which promoted satellite communities surrounded by green space, blending urban amenity with access to nature.
He estimated the developable area of the site, once areas affected by flooding and protected vegetation are excluded, sits between 20 and 27 hectares, potentially accommodating up to 2,500 homes across a range of densities. The vision was described as one centred on climate resilience, inclusion and meaningful access to green space, with the Boondall wetlands forming a natural and celebrated backdrop rather than an afterthought.
Housing and employment are not the only possibilities being floated for the site. Both planning experts indicated the existing indoor sports centre adjacent to the Entertainment Centre could and perhaps should remain as a local amenity. A 2024 proposal from Hockey Queensland for a $58.25 million facility — featuring three fields and 1,500 seats to serve Brisbane’s northern suburbs — has also been raised as a candidate, though the organisation has since directed its focus toward the Gold Coast Hockey Centre as the confirmed 2032 Olympic venue.
Legends Global, which has managed the Entertainment Centre since its opening, acknowledged the milestone of 40 years of operation but noted decisions about the site’s future rest with others.
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With no formal development proposals yet lodged under the Land Activation Program, the next chapter for Boondall remains unwritten. But the URPS planning director made clear that public leadership will be essential, not just to unlock the land, but to ensure the outcome serves the community for decades to come.
Featured image credit: Facebook/Brisbane Entertainment Centre
Published 11-March-2026
