The Brisbane 2032 venue plan: what is being built, where and when

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Kooky

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Anyone who owns, rents or is thinking of buying near a Games site in Queensland eventually asks the same three questions: what exactly is being built, when does it start, and who decides. The answers sit in one document, the 2032 Delivery Plan, and in the updates published since by the Queensland Government and the authority that builds the venues.

This guide sets the plan out venue by venue, from Victoria Park to Cairns. It explains who is responsible for each part, how the money is arranged, why Games venues do not go through the usual planning process, and what stage each project had reached by the middle of June 2026.

GIICA; Queensland Government 2032 Delivery Plan, 25 March 2025.

Where the plan came from

The current plan dates from 25 March 2025. It replaced several earlier versions of the Games map, including a rebuild of the Gabba that was abandoned and a main athlete village at Northshore Hamilton.

The route to it was a review. The Games Independent Infrastructure and Coordination Authority, known as GIICA, was created on 29 November 2024 and asked to carry out a 100 Day Review of Games infrastructure. According to the Delivery Plan, the review received more than 5,800 submissions and delivered its final report on 8 March 2025. The Government published its response to each recommendation and, on 25 March, the plan itself.

The plan describes itself as an infrastructure delivery plan and not a sports allocation plan. It says where venues and villages go and what they become afterwards. Which event is held in which hall is, in many cases, still a matter for the organising committee and the international federations.

Not every recommendation of the review was adopted. The review proposed a new high-performance aquatic centre at Chandler; the Government instead chose a National Aquatic Centre at Spring Hill. The review costed an indoor arena at Woolloongabba; the Government accepted the location but left the arena to the private sector, noting that it is not required for the Games.

Who is responsible for what

Five organisations or groups share the work, and knowing which is which tells a resident who to ask.

GIICA says it is delivering 17 venues: seven new and ten upgraded. It also has oversight of two further venues, a new arena and an upgraded hockey centre, which the City of Gold Coast is funding and delivering itself.

The split has a practical consequence. A question about the stadium, the aquatic centre or a regional grandstand goes to GIICA. A question about an athlete village goes to the State Development department. A question about a rail line or a busway goes to Transport and Main Roads.

How the money is arranged

The venues are funded under an intergovernmental agreement between the Australian and Queensland governments. The Delivery Plan puts the estimated cost of the venues at $7.1 billion.

The Commonwealth's share was confirmed in July 2025, when the federal Infrastructure Minister, Catherine King, announced a contribution of $3.435 billion to the Games Venues Infrastructure Program. She described it as the largest contribution any Australian Government has made to sporting infrastructure. The same announcement pointed to $12.4 billion of federal investment in Queensland transport projects, which sits outside the venues program.

The $7.1 billion is an envelope and not a list of prices. The Delivery Plan does not itemise it venue by venue. The only detailed public estimates are those of the 100 Day Review, which put the Victoria Park stadium at $3.785 billion, excluding precinct and transport works. On that estimate the stadium accounts for a little over half of the envelope: $3.785 billion is 53 per cent of $7.1 billion.

Spending started slowly by design. The law firm Pinsent Masons noted in August 2025 that the 2025-26 State Budget allocated $4.7 billion toward the Delivery Plan but only about $145.5 million of it to that first year, which it characterised as a year of consulting, procurement, planning and design. The athlete villages are funded separately from the venues program.

Victoria Park: the stadium and the aquatic centre

The two largest venues share one inner-city park, between Herston and Spring Hill.

Brisbane Stadium is the centrepiece. GIICA gives its capacity as 63,000, or up to 70,000 for concerts. It will hold the opening and closing ceremonies and the athletics, and afterwards become the home of the Brisbane Lions, the Brisbane Heat and the Queensland Bulls. GIICA lists the future owner as Stadiums Queensland.

The National Aquatic Centre is planned at the Centenary Pool site on the Spring Hill side. The Delivery Plan gives it more than 25,000 seats during the Games, using temporary stands, and 8,000 permanent seats afterwards, as a national base for Australia's four peak aquatic sports. Swimming, diving, water polo and artistic swimming are to be held there.

The park's status changed to make this possible. InDaily Queensland reported in February 2026 that amendments to the Brisbane Olympic and Paralympic Games Arrangements Act 2021 convert the park from trust land to freehold from 1 June 2026 and transfer it to GIICA. The authority took possession of the stadium site on that date and began site investigations and early enabling works, according to the Government's Delivering 2032 update.

The Government has said, in an update of 12 May 2026, that around two thirds of the park will remain green space and that Arup is preparing a master plan for the precinct, with consultation to follow. The site is contested: applications for protection under federal Aboriginal heritage law were before the Commonwealth Environment Minister in early June, as InDaily and the National Indigenous Times reported.

The other Brisbane and South East venues

Beyond Victoria Park, the Brisbane-area venues fall into three groups.

The first is the Brisbane Showgrounds at Bowen Hills, where the Delivery Plan provides for an upgraded main arena of 20,000 seats beside the main athlete village. The village is covered by the villages program, not by GIICA.

The second is a set of upgrades to existing state sporting facilities. The Queensland Tennis Centre at Tennyson gains a new 3,000-seat show court and 12 new match courts. At the Chandler sports precinct, the plan lists a para-sport facility in the existing indoor arena and minor upgrades to the Anna Meares Velodrome and the BMX centre. The Brisbane International Shooting Centre at Belmont is upgraded, with 2,000 temporary spectator places for its indoor range. GIICA's own venue list also includes the Brisbane Aquatic Centre at Chandler and the Chandler precinct as upgrades.

The third group is new community sports centres in the growth corridors around the capital. The Logan Indoor Sports Centre, in the Logan Central civic precinct, is described in a GIICA factsheet as having nine courts across two halls and room for 7,000 spectators during the Games, with construction to begin in early to mid 2027 and take about two years. The Moreton Bay Indoor Sports Centre is at the Mill precinct in Petrie and, according to GIICA, has 12 courts. The Redland Whitewater Centre at Birkdale is to sit beside a planned community precinct with a public lagoon.

The Logan factsheet is a useful example of how these centres are meant to work. It describes the venue as one of the largest fully accessible multi-purpose sports centres in South East Queensland, serving an area expected to pass 500,000 residents by 2041, and says it will switch to community use in late 2032.

The Gold Coast and the Sunshine Coast

On the Gold Coast, the venues are largely the city's own. The Delivery Plan lists a new Gold Coast Arena and an upgraded hockey centre, both funded and delivered by the City of Gold Coast, and the existing convention and exhibition centre. InDaily Queensland reported on 17 March 2026 that a consortium had been chosen to build the arena. The plan also places a satellite athlete village at the Royal Pines Resort development.

On the Sunshine Coast, GIICA delivers two venues. Sunshine Coast Stadium at Kawana is being rebuilt around a new eastern grandstand and a reconstructed western one. The Delivery Plan gives the result as 10,680 permanent seats, up from 1,046; GIICA's venue page rounds it to about 10,000 and adds a Games capacity of up to 20,000 with temporary seating, for Olympic football. Sunshine Coast Council is a funding partner. The second venue is the Sunshine Coast Mountain Bike Centre in the Parklands Conservation Park.

The Sunshine Coast village is planned in the Maroochydore city centre, which the plan describes as integrated with an arena and cultural precinct.

Regional Queensland

The plan spreads events well beyond the south-east, and each regional venue is an upgrade to something a community already uses.

Barlow Park, owned by Cairns Regional Council, has 1,700 permanent seats today according to GIICA and is to hold 20,000 during the Games with temporary seating. The Rockhampton course on the Fitzroy River is paired with a satellite athlete village in the city's railyards precinct; a Delivering 2032 update of 27 March 2026 was headed "Rocky on course for rowing and canoeing in 2032". At Toowoomba, GIICA lists the showgrounds as in planning and approvals, with spectator capacity still to be confirmed.

The owners differ, and that affects who looks after each venue afterwards. Barlow Park belongs to its council. The Toowoomba Showgrounds belongs to the Royal Agricultural Society of Queensland, and GIICA describes the works there as a new international-standard cross-country course, additional arenas and warm-up spaces, upgraded stabling, washdown bays and isolation stables. GIICA's Barlow Park page shows planning and approvals running from 2025 to 2027 and design to 2028.

The plan also uses the existing North Queensland Stadium in Townsville and the Cairns Convention Centre, with no new building at either.

The Gabba and the arena that is not a Games venue

One of the most asked questions about the plan concerns something it leaves out. The Gabba is not rebuilt. The Delivery Plan keeps it as an existing cricket ground through the Games and hands the site's future to the private sector, as an arena and housing precinct.

The State Development department describes the Gabba Entertainment Precinct as a nine-hectare site at Woolloongabba, less than two kilometres from the city centre and beside a Cross River Rail station. A ministerial statement of 25 March 2026 said two consortia had been shortlisted from eight bids to propose a 17,000-seat indoor arena and housing, with a preferred proponent to be announced later in 2026 and construction to start in the first half of 2027.

Because the arena is not needed for the Games, it sits outside the $7.1 billion venues program and outside GIICA's list of 17. For Woolloongabba owners it is nonetheless the Games-era project with the largest housing component in the inner south.

How a venue is approved and built

Games venues follow a path of their own. GIICA's venue pages show the same five phases for every project.

What is missing from that list is a development application. InDaily Queensland's report on the February 2026 amendments notes that venues were already exempt from most planning and environmental controls under the Games Arrangements Act.

Procurement is also distinctive. For the stadium, GIICA is using early contractor involvement: on 9 April 2026 it named two joint ventures, Built with Sacyr and John Holland with BESIX Watpac, to work alongside the designers for three months before one is chosen later in 2026. For the regional venues it appoints a principal architect first and a builder afterwards.

The transport projects attached to the plan

The Delivery Plan lists transport projects by region, and they are funded and delivered separately from the venues.

In Brisbane the anchor is Cross River Rail: 10.2 kilometres of new line including 5.9 kilometres of twin tunnel, four new underground stations at Boggo Road, Woolloongabba, Albert Street and Roma Street, and an upgraded Exhibition station beside the showgrounds. The plan adds bus priority on Old Cleveland Road and Gympie Road.

To the south it lists Logan to Gold Coast Faster Rail, which the Delivering 2032 transport page describes as doubling the tracks between Kuraby and Beenleigh, along with further stages of the Coomera Connector. To the north it lists The Wave, a rail line from Beerwah to Birtinya with an onward connection through Maroochydore to the Sunshine Coast Airport by 2032. For the regions, the plan points to more than $9 billion for the Bruce Highway, the Rockhampton Ring Road and road upgrades in Cairns and Townsville.

A listing in the plan is a statement of intent. Each project has its own funding and timetable, and those are the documents to check before relying on a completion date.

Where things stood in mid-June 2026

Fifteen months after the plan, the pattern is the stadium site in the authority's hands, first site works at two indoor centres and the rest in design.

GIICA's one-year progress note of 26 March 2026 recorded site investigations at Victoria Park and Rockhampton, the appointment of a delivery partner, a principal architect team for the stadium and for the Moreton Bay centre, and the start of site works for the Logan and Moreton Bay centres. It listed as next steps early works at Victoria Park from mid-2026 and architect appointments for the aquatic centre and the Logan centre.

The first of those has happened: the authority took possession at Victoria Park on 1 June. On the same day the Government announced the architects for the Brisbane athlete village. The stadium builder is to be chosen later in 2026, with main construction from 2027.

For a reader near any of these sites, three habits are worth keeping. Check GIICA's page for the venue, which shows its current phase. Read the Delivering 2032 updates, which carry the dated announcements. And treat capacities and dates as those of a plan in progress: several, including the Toowoomba venue's capacity, are still marked as to be confirmed.

Kooky, from Shaka

Kooky edits Queensland Estate and builds Shaka, the payment router he made for Queensland property professionals. One payment comes in, and every agent, agency and party in the deal receives their signed share on closing date.

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