Event Recap
The Property Council has held a range of events over the last fortnight including Business at the Beach on the Sunshine Coast, a Brisbane Industrial Strategy Breakfast Forum and an Office Market Report briefing.
Sunshine Coast: Business at the Beach
The Property Council welcomed over 1 guests to the Novotel at Twin Waters to take a closer look at the ground breaking development of the Maroochydore City Centre and discuss the strong tail winds the Sunshine Coast economy was currently experiencing.
Sunshine Coast Council CEO Emma Thomas presented the key note presentation. She said it was crucial for the Sunshine Coast to have an identifiable city centre before the Olympics and that the region and the city centre was an attractive location for businesses to invest due to the region’s “natural advantage” due to its sustainability credentials.
Following this Emma Thomas was joined by Murray McCarthy – Project Director of the Maroochydore City Centre at Walker Corporation and Shaun Munday – Managing Director at Place Design Group for a panel discussion.
Murray spoke about Walker Corporation’s role signing the development agreement for the city centre with Sunshine Coast Council and SunCentral. He delved into the opportunities for the private sector to partner with Walker Corporation and the developments currently in train for the city centre.
Shaun discussed his long term involvement with the project which included the initial planning and design of the city centre. He reiterated how the region’s natural advantage in sustainability would be key in attracting forward thinking businesses to take up tenancies in the development.
The event was expertly run by Brad Williams – General Manager Sunshine Coast for RPS, and Chair of the Property Council’s Sunshine Coast Committee.
Special thanks to Unitywater for sponsoring the event.
Breakfast Forum: Brisbane Industrial Strategy – Livestream – Tuesday 3 August 2021
The Property Council’s Queensland Industrial Committee pivoted their planned breakfast forum on Tuesday 3 August , which was held to discuss Our Productive City: Brisbane’s Industrial Future, a draft Industrial strategy currently out for public consultation. Another topic of conversation at this forum was the proposed amendments to Major Amendment package K, also open for public consultation.
Guests tuned in online for the livestreamed event to hear from keynote speaker Deputy Mayor Cr Krista Adams, as well insights from industry professionals from a planning, legal and development perspective.
Cr Krista Adams provided an overview of why a strategy was required, discussing pandemic impacts including supply chain pressures, niche manufacturing trends and the need to plan alongside the 2032 Olympics Games. Gail Black, Partner from Gadens moderated the panel discussion exploring topics related to draft industrial strategy’s objective, stemming from the pandemic’s impact on the industrial sector and the nee for alignment with the Major Amendment package K. Stephen Mason, Principal – Planning from RPS, discussed how it was important to incorporate performance-based planning into the strategy and flexibility concerning uses in Industry C Zoned land. Dan Brekan, General Manager from Goodman Group, shared that it was important to decrease thresholds in warehouses, ensuring that businesses were able to scale up and down to meet demand.
The Property Council wishes to thank Gadens for their sponsorship to make the forum possible, as well as our speakers, Deputy Mayor Cr Krista Adams, Stephen Mason – RPS, Daniel Brekan – Goodman and moderator Gail Black – Gadens for being generous with their time.
For more information on the Property Council’s submissions on this strategy and Major Amendment package K, please get in touch with Julia Dixon, Senior Policy Advisor.
Mid-Year Office Market Report Briefing – Livestream – Thursday 5 August 2021
The Property Council’s mid-year Office Market Report (OMR), in light of the extended lockdown, was moved online and held as a livestream event.
The event was virtually attended by over 130 property professionals who were eager to examine the latest data on Queensland’s commercial office market.
Remarkably, the latest Office Market Report reinforced the Queensland office market’s resilience, with office market vacancy decreasing marginally in Brisbane and dropping significantly in the Gold Coast over the last six months. High levels of activity from small and medium enterprises on Brisbane’s fringe market largely drove this uptick.
However, speakers at briefing believed that this positive impact would shift to Brisbane’s CBD market as the larger tenants regained the confidence to re-sign longer term leases following a successful rollout of the vaccine and conclusion of snap lockdowns.
Keynote speaker, Jennelle Wilson, Partner – Research & Consulting at Knight Frank, presented the latest data and examined the various drivers of supply and demand through Queensland’s sub-markets.
The panel of experts which included, Bruce Baker – Executive Managing Director at CBRE, James Montague – Senior Director, Head of Office Leasing at JLL, and Tim Slessor – Executive Manager, Brisbane Consolidation Real Estate, Procurement and Operations at Suncorp, joined Jennelle in discussing what these improved vacancy rates mean for the long-term outlook of the market. Bradley Norris – Regional Development Director at Charter Hall and Chair of the Property Council’s Commercial Office Committee moderated the discussion.
Read our Brisbane media release here.
Read our Gold Coast media release here.
Purchase the Office Market Report data here.