Charter Hall has officially submitted a development application for Brisbane Square Tower 2 which is located at 266 George Street.

Last month Charter Hall had reportedly produced a “compelling offer” which helped to secure a heads of agreement with QSuper, who have been shopping around for space to accommodate QSuper’s new 17,200 sqm headquarters.

If approved, the 36-storey ‘suspended commercial tower’ would reach 185m high, which would make it the fourth tallest commercial tower in Brisbane.

Development Rundown

Brisbane Square Tower 2 involves a second tower for Brisbane Square and proposes an enhanced ground level public plaza. Other features include:

6-Star Green Star office rating

A total of 43,824 sqm of commercial space

Retention of a publicly accessible civic square at ground level

Improved facilities for Jan Powers farmers markets

New food and drink outlet on the lobby level of the new tower

Retention of existing Brisbane Square office building, library and ground level retail uses.

Design

Designed by Blight Rayner Architects, a ‘suspended tower’ design has been proposed in order to retain the function of the existing civic plaza at ground level.

According to the development application, this will ensure that Redcliff Place can continue to operate as a large, publicly accessible civic square.

The space will include equivalent access, facilities, amenity and connections to the Queen Street Mall. Improvements will also be made to the ground level lobby within the existing building with the creation of a new ‘Great Hall’ which plans to make the space even more active.

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“The proposal is organic in approach both in planning, spatial relationship, landscape composition and environmental performance resulting in a slender tower allowing views into and out of the city.

The proposed organic form marks Brisbane’s two most important streets as the gateway to the retail heart of Brisbane as well as becoming a counterpoint to the existing Brisbane Square and neighbouring developments, 300 George and Queens Wharf.

The existing ground plane is reimaged by creating Brisbane’s first indoor public square- notionally call the “Great Hall” – is designed to embody the notion of “exchange” where people meet with the Brisbane community, where products can be showcased, and through which visitors ascend to a subtropical podium overlooking the river and South Bank.

This Tangible sense of interactive marketplace is then able to be reinforced through tenant’s workplace levels, creating a “business with boundaries” Our concept epitomises these Buildings that Breathe principles which range from environmental technical performance to public realm engagement to vertical gardens and elevated outdoor spaces. At the base, we proposed to reimage Reddacliff place which will be the city’s fulcrum of public movement and interaction.

The proposed tower complements this indoor-outdoor connectivity by the following key elements:

Open garden levels up the tower height at top, middle and podium;

A series of mixed- mode outdoor rooms through the tower levels, facilitating outdoor meetings and social interaction; and

The potential further ability to incorporate breathable faced portions which could evolve form the “indoor – out” workplace design process. Equally importantly to what these elements mean is a workplace environment that is the visible architectural expression of this building as a tower embodying its transparency and openness as well as a vertical campus of gardens and verandahs.”

Outdoor Open Space

The proposed development provides a significant amount of public and private outdoor open space. This includes:

Retention of publicly accessible civic square at ground level

Open landscaped terrace above the existing building podium fronting George Street. This is planned to be private open space and will not include any gross floor area

Open landscaped terraces on levels 4, 7, 8, 12 and 21

A high park at level 17 of the building

A sky park on the roof of the building

The above will result in a total of 5,314m2 of outdoor open space on site. This represents a nett increase of 3,357m2 (288%) compared with the existing situation on site.

Jan Powers Farmers Market

The Jan Powers Farmers Markets would be accommodated in Reddacliff Place once Brisbane Square Tower 2 is constructed. The proposed development plans to increase the capacity of the markets and would improve the market facilities. In particular, this will include the following:

Increase the number of stalls that can be accommodated by the markets

Fixing points in the floor for gazebo’s (these would be concealed below ground when not in use)

Permanent power and water supply points at fixed intervals within the market space

55m2 storage area for use by the market.

Green Star Rating

The proposed new tower is proposed to achieve a 6-Star Green Star design rating. This would be achieved through the use of the following design features, amongst others:

High performance vision panel IGU glazing system. A glazed façade system with a nominal visual light transmittance (VLT) of 30 to 50% that can provide excellent daylight penetration

High efficiency electric centrifugal chillers

Variable speed chilled water pumps controlled so to ensure operation at the minimum speeds to satisfy the load

Low temperature variable-air-volume air conditioning system that matches the air supply to the actual load (not the peak load)

Variable speed fans controlled so that they always operate at the minimum possible speed to satisfy the load

High efficiency cooling towers incorporating, auto-adaptive cooling tower control designed to minimise cooling tower energy consumption

Energy efficient LED light sources for the office lighting

Intelligent commercial office tenancy lighting control system incorporating movement and ambient light sensors

Lighting in car parks will be operated after hours by movement sensors

Building management and control system (BMCS) incorporated to optimize building control

Dedicated energy metering and management system (EMMS) incorporated to optimize utilities consumption

Extensive electrical, thermal energy, gas and water metering connected to the EMMS to facilitate management of utilities usage

Facilities for offsite monitoring of the building performance via the internet.

The proposed development involves an overall reduction in the number of car parking spaces provided on site. Some existing car parking spaces will need to be removed to accommodate new structural columns within the basement levels to support the new tower.

The development application number for this project is A004790156.