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About Kooky and Shaka →Demolition of the Machinery Hill grandstand at the Brisbane Showgrounds has begun, the Queensland Government's 2032 delivery website reported on Thursday 10 September 2026. It follows the handover of Centenary Pool at Spring Hill to the Games Independent Infrastructure and Coordination Authority on Tuesday 1 September, and the start of earthworks inside the Brisbane Stadium footprint at Herston, set out in the authority's construction notice for September.
Until this month, Games construction in inner Brisbane meant one fenced area on the Herston side of Victoria Park. It now means three work sites in three suburbs, Herston, Spring Hill and Bowen Hills, all within one precinct and all within a short walk of established streets.
Games authority website and construction notice dated 25 August 2026; 2032 delivery update, 10 September 2026.
Spring Hill: the pool closes after 67 years
Centenary Pool closed to the public on Monday 31 August 2026. The following day the authority, known as GIICA, took possession of the Spring Hill section of Victoria Park, including the pool, and says site preparations began immediately.
The pool has a place in the city's history that the authority's own post acknowledges. It opened in 1959, and was Brisbane's first Olympic-standard pool and diving complex until the Brisbane Aquatic Centre at Chandler was built in 1980. It was heritage listed in 1996. From its opening to its closure is 67 years.
The site is to become the National Aquatic Centre. GIICA describes a building with three covered pools, a gym, and office and high-performance spaces, which it says will complement the three existing outdoor pools at Centenary Pool. The design team is ARM Architecture, the Queensland practice Arkhefield and NH Architecture, and the design is described as inspired by "the movement of wind and water", with a rippling roofline and a green central concourse.
Related readRockhampton's Games rowing course is endorsed; now it needs 1,200 roomsThe 2032 Delivery Plan, published in March 2025, gives the centre 25,000 seats in Games mode and 8,000 afterwards. Construction is scheduled to start in 2027.
For now, the authority's September construction notice lists modest activity on the Spring Hill side: temporary fencing from late August, decommissioning of redundant infrastructure, site and service surveys, heritage surveying, possible pruning of vegetation and borehole drilling by the electricity distributor Energex.
Herston: earthworks inside the stadium footprint
The heavier work is across the park, where the 63,000-seat stadium is to stand; the authority's venue page adds that it will hold up to 70,000 people for concerts. The same notice describes the "commencement of earthworks within the stadium footprint, including the use of excavators, bulldozers, and large dump trucks".
Around that sit the supporting jobs: internal haul roads and stockpiles, vegetation clearing, environmental controls, utility works on sewer, electrical, telecommunications and gas lines, site fencing and the demolition of existing infrastructure. A shared path for walkers and cyclists is being built beside Gilchrist Avenue.
The notice says public access to the western sections of the park is maintained, and warns that the construction footprint will expand as work progresses. That is consistent with what the Premier's office published on 1 June 2026, when the first site was handed over: the North Brisbane Bikeway, York's Hollow and the pump track stay open, while Gilchrist Avenue is closed to traffic and parking and park access from the QUT and Herston bus stations is shut.
Standard hours are 6.30am to 6.30pm, Monday to Saturday
The authority's September notice sets those hours for construction at Victoria Park. Equipment may be delivered outside them, and the notice says affected stakeholders are notified individually when that happens.
Bowen Hills: the first stand comes down
At the Showgrounds, the delivery update of 10 September says construction "has commenced", with the demolition of the Machinery Hill grandstand as the first phase. A sod-turning was held at Machinery Hill with representatives of Hutchinson Builders and the RNA, the association that runs the Ekka.
Related readSunshine Coast Stadium: demolition tender opens as clubs prepare to moveThe timing matches what the Government announced on 5 August. Deputy Premier Jarrod Bleijie's statement that day put the Showgrounds works at $287.5 million, named Hutchinson Builders, and said demolition at Machinery Hill was expected in September, after the 2026 show.
The program delivers a new Machinery Hill grandstand, a new horse pavilion and accessibility upgrades around the 20,000-seat Main Arena. The delivery update adds a detail about the builder: director Jack Hutchinson's great-great-grandfather helped construct the original Showgrounds more than a century ago.
The Showgrounds is also where the Brisbane athlete village will stand. The Delivery Plan says it will house more than 10,000 athletes and officials during the Olympic Games, and the State's delivery update of 5 August says about 1,800 homes follow on the site afterwards.
| Site | Suburb | What is happening | Main build |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brisbane Stadium | Herston | Earthworks, haul roads, utilities, clearing | Not yet dated in the notice |
| National Aquatic Centre | Spring Hill | Fencing, surveys, decommissioning | 2027 |
| Brisbane Showgrounds | Bowen Hills | Demolition of Machinery Hill grandstand | Under way |
Games authority construction notice (25 August 2026) and website; 2032 delivery update, 10 September 2026.
Who is in charge of which fence
The three sites look like one project from the footpath, but they sit under different parts of the State.
The stadium and the aquatic centre are competition venues. They are two of the seventeen venues GIICA is delivering under the $7.1 billion Games Venues Infrastructure Program, funded jointly by the Australian and Queensland governments. The authority issues the construction notices for both and runs a free 24-hour phone line for the public.
The Showgrounds works are part of the athlete village program. The 5 August statement places them inside a $3.5 billion State investment in villages, and the Delivery Plan gives responsibility for villages to the Department of State Development. The builder on site there, Hutchinson, is working with the RNA.
Related readThe Wave: station designs for Beerwah, Bells Creek and Caloundra go publicFor a resident with a question about noise, trucks or access, that split decides who answers. The authority's September notice covers the two venue sites in the park. It does not mention the Showgrounds.
Why none of this went through council
Building works of this scale would ordinarily pass through the development approval system set up by the Planning Act 2016. These have not, and the reason is legislation.
Section 53DD of the Brisbane Olympic and Paralympic Games Arrangements Act 2021, inserted by an amending Act that received assent on 30 June 2025, provides that development to build a listed Games venue or village is taken to be lawful despite fifteen State Acts. The list includes the Planning Act 2016, the City of Brisbane Act 2010, the Queensland Heritage Act 1992 and the Vegetation Management Act 1999.
That is the legal basis on which a heritage-listed pool can be handed over for redevelopment and vegetation cleared in a city park without the usual permits. The Act does keep building standards in place: section 53DE requires building work on venues to comply with the Building Act 1975.
The authority has also set out the park's own history as context for the clearing. In a post dated 25 August, its cultural heritage manager, Dr Kate Quirk, wrote that the ground was reshaped nine times between 1931 and 2001 while it was a golf course, with extensive earthworks and removal of vegetation. Opponents of the stadium have argued throughout that the park's cultural and historic significance to Indigenous people is the larger question, as the ABC has reported.
Related readWorld equestrian chiefs inspect Toowoomba Showgrounds for 2032What the precinct plan says comes back
The works are running alongside a public consultation on what the precinct looks like when they finish. The Victoria Park Precinct Draft Legacy Plan, prepared by Arup, has been open for comment since 3 August and closes on 27 September 2026.
The Government says about two-thirds of Victoria Park remains green and public space. GIICA's 25 August post summarises what the draft proposes for the landscape: restored waterways, an expanded wetland, more tree canopy and green links around the venues.
For the people who swam at Centenary Pool or walked through the park to work, the practical position this month is that the closures have arrived before the replacements have a date. The pool is shut and the aquatic centre does not start construction until 2027. The plan that describes the future park is still a draft.
What comes next
The construction notice covers September only. The next one should show how far the stadium footprint has grown and whether work on the Spring Hill side moves beyond surveys.
On the authority's timetable the aquatic centre site stays in preparation until construction starts in 2027, so the closed pool will sit behind fencing for some months before building begins.
Two decisions are due after that. The consultation on the draft legacy plan closes on 27 September. And the Premier's office said on 1 June that main construction partners for the stadium would be appointed "within a matter of months".
At the Showgrounds, the Ekka continues each year through the build, according to the Government, with 2032 the only year it is not held.
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.
