Former Brisbane paint factory a step closer to becoming arts hub

Brisbane City Council has granted consent for the rezoning of an 86-year-old former paint factory on the city's southside that would see it transformed into a mixed-use arts precinct. With the site currently designated as low-impact industrial land, the approval paves the way for a two-stage development featuring converted spaces for creative industries and a series of new apartment buildings.

The site at 115 Hyde Road in Yeronga opened as the Taubmans paint manufacturing plant in 1939 and operated for more than 60 years before closing in 2015. It has since served as a temporary creative space for artists such as Richard Bell and Judy Watson, as well as architecture practice Five Mile Radius.

Following council's approval last week, the factory is now set to evolve into a permanent "arts village" based on plans prepared in 2023 by Wolter Consulting in collaboration with landscape architecture practice Dunn and Moran, and architectural design firm Mode Design.

The first stage of proposed works includes the reworking of the paint factory to the south of the site, including food and drink outlets, art spaces, a theatre and an escape room, as well as 64 car parks for visitors and staff with up to 200 spaces for events.

According to a media release from the councillor for Central Ward Vicki Howard, the 34,000-square-metre precinct "could also feature markets, health services, a garden centre, a hardware store and hundreds of new homes" in the future.

As part of stage two of the works, a collection of apartment buildings are proposed on the north-side of the site. In respect of the precinct's approved height, council has endorsed a four-storey-high envelope on the site's southern edge and up to eight storeys in the site's centre.

Submissions made by the public during the consultation period in early 2024 were divided in their response to the proposal, with many local residents favouring the factory's adaptive reuse but expressing concern with the scale of the proposed mid-rise apartments within the predominantly low-rise suburb.

In 2023, councillor for Tennyson Ward Nicole Johnston noted that while "some aspects of the proposal are innovative and welcome, such as reuse of some the existing buildings for arts purposes … others are concerning, such as the significant number of future high-rise unit blocks and an estimated additional 2000 vehicles per day accessing the site."

"Finally, some are just plain inadequate, namely the lack of any new infrastructure," she added.

Howard's communique aligns the proposal with the council's ambition to convert under-utilised commercial and industrial land into lifestyle and housing opportunities to cater for rapid growth, as outlined in Brisbane's Sustainable Growth Strategy.

Chair of the Lord Mayor's Better Suburbs Initiative Ross Elliott commented, "Suburban renewal means making the most of what we already have, by repurposing older suburban land uses into contemporary places which meet today's community needs. The Paint Factory project does just this.

He added, "In the same way that former industrial areas like James Street, New Farm, have over time converted into vibrant mixed-use precincts, the same can happen in other precincts across the city."