Brisbane CBD Hotel Tower Design Scaled Back

Revised plans have been filed for a scaled-back “high-end” hotel development on a Brisbane CBD site previously earmarked for an accommodation tower more than twice the size.

The proposal comprises a slender 12-storey tower with 60 hotel room suites rising from a narrow 397sq m holding at 44 Roma Street—next to the elevated Turbot Street overpass.

It has been lodged a year after initial plans for a 27-storey tower with 212 hotel rooms were withdrawn following objections that deemed it a “gross overdevelopment” of the corner site.

The latest proposal has been designed by CPO Architects and filed by long standing landowner Contal Properties, an entity linked to travel website and app entrepreneur Peter Biedak.

It includes two podium levels with a reception/foyer, restaurant, bar and cafe sitting below 10 tower levels each occupied by six hotel rooms.

The tower would be capped by a rooftop garden—including a pool, spa, outdoor lounge area, barbecue and dining space—to “take advantage of surrounding views and provide a ‘green’ oasis within the city”.

To encourage the use of nearby public transport modes, no on-site carparking spaces would be provided in the development.

“The proposed development is for a 12-storey high-end hotel,” a submitted planning report said. It would replace a pre-1946 existing shopfront on the site.

According to the report, the proposal “exhibits outstanding architectural merit through the delivery of a visually engaging and climate responsive building that responds to the site’s constraints through screening measures, articulation, recession, and landscaping”.

The Roma Street site adjoins the former Brisbane Fruit and Produce Exchange—a local heritage place—but an assessment deemed the proposal would not generate any adverse impacts on the cultural heritage significance attributed to the neighbouring Federation era commercial/mercantile building.

“The proposal over the site will be consistent with and contribute to the rhythm and pattern of the streetscape in keeping with the intended neighbourhood character of the immediate area,” the development application said.

A design statement said the proposed hotel tower aimed to “enrich the growing short-stay tourism scene” in the Brisbane CBD's North Quarter precinct.

“With scenic views across the city and into Roma Street Parklands, each room within the 12-storey proposal maximises views provided by the two street frontages,” it said.

The facade of the proposal employs screening as both a functional and an aesthetic feature to the tower body.

“Viewed predominantly from a vehicle in motion, the tower screening is layered and twisted to produce movement along the facade as the viewer passes.

“At each view angle of the screening appears to form varying patterns from circular to vertical formations, creating the optical illusion.” 

The screening pattern and blade angles are also designed to enhance the internal spaces, shading the facade and optimising key views externally to the surrounds and biophilic design without compromising internal privacy.

As well, the tower’s proposed crown has been designed to create “a distinctive silhouette in the Brisbane skyline, forming a dramatic point of interest”.