The Brisbane Entertainment Centre at Boondall is approaching the end of its run as a live entertainment venue, with the 2032 Brisbane Olympics expected to mark its final chapter, and debate is already building over what could rise on the 64-hectare site once the curtain comes down.
Read: Mumford & Sons To Perform At Boondall’s Brisbane Entertainment Centre In 2026
The centre has been a fixture of Queensland’s live entertainment scene since it first opened its doors in February 1986, drawing more than 19 million visitors over four decades. The venue is expected to host an Olympic event, European handball is the current frontrunner, and that occasion is broadly anticipated to be its last major booking. After that, the privately developed Gabba Arena is set to take over as the city’s leading indoor venue, leaving the Boondall site open to an entirely new purpose.
Urban planners and property developers say it is the kind of prospect that rarely presents itself. A senior planning director at Colliers said it is not often a site of this size becomes available as a single land parcel, connected to two train stations and the Gateway Motorway. She said she struggled to see any future in which the Entertainment Centre continues operating in its present form, and drew comparisons to the long-running community debate over the former Toombul shopping centre site, suggesting the Boondall conversation will generate no shortage of opinions.
The Queensland Land Activation Program, administered through Economic Development Queensland, has added momentum to that conversation by inviting private developers to put forward proposals for underutilised publicly owned land that could be converted to housing. According to industry observers, the Boondall site is a natural fit for that program.
An associate director at Urban Economics said developer interest in the site would be considerable, but argued the opportunity should not be viewed purely through a housing lens. He held up Brisbane Technology Park at Eight Mile Plains as a relevant precedent, a precinct that took shape over many years and now supports around 300 jobs per hectare through private investment. A similar employment-focused model, he suggested, could work well at Boondall once environmental constraints on the site are taken into account.
A director at planning consultancy URPS put forward a more ambitious vision still. He described the potential for what he called a subtropical garden suburb, a concept rooted in the garden city movement, which sought to combine the convenience of city living with meaningful access to green space and nature. Applied to Boondall, the concept would celebrate and respect the natural environment of the wetlands and open bushland adjoining the site.
After accounting for flood-prone and environmentally sensitive areas, he estimated somewhere between 20 and 27 hectares could realistically be developed, with capacity for as many as 2,500 dwellings at varying densities. The emphasis, he said, would be on creating a mixed and balanced community with access to employment, services and diverse housing, close to the natural environment.
Both planning experts agreed that the northern portion of the site, the bushland corridor between the venue and the Gateway Motorway, warrants careful protection. Development would be better concentrated toward the south, where land has already been cleared and sits largely above flood levels. That cleared land, as it happens, is the same expanse of car parks that has tested the patience of generations of concert and event patrons.
Sport and recreation also feature in the mix of possibilities. Both experts suggested the indoor sports centre that sits alongside the Entertainment Centre could reasonably be retained for community use. A proposal developed by Hockey Queensland in 2024 for a $58.25 million northern Brisbane facility, with three playing fields and seating for 1,500, has also been floated as a potential fit for the site, though Hockey Queensland has more recently turned its attention to the Gold Coast Hockey Centre ahead of the 2032 Games.
Legends Global, the company that has operated the Entertainment Centre from the outset, marked the venue’s 40th anniversary and pointed to its track record with pride, while acknowledging that decisions about what comes next belong to others.
No formal proposals have been submitted to the Land Activation Program for the site as yet. But the URPS director was firm on one point, whatever vision ultimately takes shape, it will need to be driven by clear public leadership rather than left entirely to market forces, given the scale of what is at stake and the lasting legacy that the 2032 Games should leave behind.
Read: From Boondall to the Big League: Rocco Zikarsky’s Journey to the NBA
For Albany Creek, Boondall and the communities that make up Brisbane’s northern corridor, the Entertainment Centre has long been part of the local fabric. What replaces it may define the area for decades to come.
Published 12-March-2026
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