Mirvac lands Suncorp for Brisbane's $800m Ann Street development
Mirvac has announced it has secured banking and insurance group Suncorp as the anchor tenant within its new $800 million development which will form a "new city precinct" in the heart of Brisbane.
Suncorp will occupy 40,000 sqm of Premium Grade office space within the 32-storey tower designed by Woods Bagot.
Located at 80 Ann Street, the development has been likened to a new city precinct comprising many diverse places, rather than a singular building, says the architect.
The design aims to repair the city fabric by returning the last remaining piece of Brisbane’s oldest surviving fruit and produce market on Turbot Street while also providing a porous public realm at the ground floor.
Additionally, the development will act as a catalyst to the upcoming Brisbane Live precinct and the development of the north west quarter of the CBD around the Roma Street Station.
Internally, the workplace design for Suncorp will enable people to work together as one holistic community which champions the City of Brisbane’s vision for ‘Buildings that Breathe’.
Architects Woods Bagot describe the very flexible large floorplates which carry wide structural spans and minimal internal columns, and with excellent access to daylight and views as “dream floorplates”. Providing a large continuous space on each level, the floorplates are linked with intertenancy stairs and atria that create larger interconnected communities all the way up the Suncorp's lease.
This is unlike anything else in the city. Spanning an entire block between Ann and Turbot streets, the development will help connect the CBD to the Roma Street precinct, the two courts buildings and surrounding plazaz and squares to make a distinctive precinct of its own with an unprecedented civic and retail offering.
This is also a mixed mode building in the true sense with arrival spaces connected to the outside via louvered and openable facades. With terraces and balconies available to each community within the tower Suncorp’s people will be able to step outside at every third level, without having to go all the way down to the ground.
There will be an abundance of natural daylight and fresh air for optimum workplace wellbeing and connectedness … Brisbane has the perfect climate to bring inside.
- Mark Damant, Director and global workplace architecture leader at Woods Bagot
The development also echoes Woods Bagot's 1 William Street project, which brought together nearly 5,000 Queensland public servants from 16 sites to a single location. Suncorp staff are currently dispersed across three sites throughout Brisbane’s CBD, with the floor plate and spatial planning of its tenancy intended to support greater collaboration and happier staff in an efficient and highly productive workplace environment.
80 Ann Street aims to raise the benchmark of premium office accommodation in Brisbane, incorporating the latest thinking and technology to provide a vertically integrated working environment.
Key to this is the adoption of a sustainable approach to the design which embraces the sub-tropical climate of Brisbane, providing breathable spaces and a flexible working environment which promotes the health and well-being of the building community and the success of their businesses.
Breathing floors which have been designed as mixed mode ‘garden terraces’ that connect employees with the outside world and provide fresh air, are located at levels 23 and 32.
Timber pods housing meeting rooms, collaboration spaces and other client engagement spaces float on these floors as informal meeting or working spaces.
The roof level hosts function spaces and a kitchen facility with the remaining area comprising a shaded roof terrace with outdoor settings, herb gardens and plans for small fruit trees. A high level roof soffit will act as a projection backdrop for cultural displays and potentially light shows providing the Brisbane skyline with a new focal point.
Project details
- Project: 80 Ann Street
- Location: Brisbane, Australia
- Client: Mirvac and Suncorp
- Status: Development approved, in design development. Completion due 2022.
- Value: AUD 800 million
- GFA/ Area: 84,263 m2
- Height: 32 storeys
Woods Bagot Global team
- Brisbane - Mark Damant, HangChung Ling, Christopher Lewis, Mark Nilon, Su Chen, Graham Whawell
- London - Nik Karalis
- San Francisco - Christina Kyrillou, George Waters, Eli Linger, Maulana Murdan, David Barry
- Sydney - Amanda Stanaway, Bradhly Le, Olivier Solente
