Brisbane Airport cancels plans for billion-dollar auto mall and motor circuit
Brisbane Airport cancels plans for billion-dollar auto mall and motor circuit
Brisbane Airport’s hyped $1 billion Auto Mall, announced with much fanfare in 2015, has been scrapped, leaving a 51-hectare site in need of a new purpose.
Being on Commonwealth land, the site would be able to accommodate around-the-clock activity without having to comply with state and council regulations, hence BAC’s Skygate precinct having Queensland’s only 24-hour Woolworths supermarket.
Bit of a shame for car enthusiasts. There are not many tracks around SE QLD.
However, the changing landscape in the motor industry, not least of which is the rise of electric vehicles, meant the economics of such a track no longer stacked up.
This doesn't make much sense. EVs can also be driven on a track. I'm guessing the real reason for stopping development is general economic concerns.
Agreed, especially since a stock EV is already fairly fast. Most manufacturers are releasing performance variants as well with extra grunt and better handling. Also the EV manufacturers are more aligned to automall / online selling (Tesla,polestar,Hyundai), missed opportunity there for them. With the fed gov removal of FBT on sub 90k EV's fleet / novated lease companies are also prime for an automall.
An auto mall is obviously for someone with a lot more disposable income than myself. I thought the internet basically killed this style of retail
This death announcement was the first I had heard of it to be honest, but I'm definitely not sad to see it's dead.
It doesn't affect me directly since I live well away from Brisbane, but not building a track is disappointing. Anyone interested in cars or bikes is forever getting told they should take them to the track instead of daring to use any real percentage of their capabilities on public roads, but tracks are dwindling across Australia and very few are being built. Next to an airport seems a pretty good place to build one as you're colocating a noisy development with an existing noisy location - hopefully reducing the multitudes of future noise complaints you risk trying to build a track anywhere near where people may build housing in the next few decades.
I’m personally glad to see it get canceled. I’m not against a closed track car shopping mall but not at the airport. It doesn’t send a good image to tourists the first thing they see when they arrive at Brisbane is cars hooning. The cancellation hopefully is a sign that people are moving away from even owning a car.
I hope the space gets turned into something everyone can enjoy.
I am against the Auto Mall because gods don't we have enough of that already? But I'm far less critical of car enthusiasts having a place to safely do their thing.
I'm undecided on whether the airport is a suitable place for it or not. You make a very persuasive argument, but on the other hand the airport is currently one of the worst most car-dependent places in Brisbane, and it's fairly out of the way with little reason for many people not in cars to want to go there anyway. So it might not be the worst place for something like this.
Near the airport is a very good place for a track, because they can be reasonably loud and you already have a bunch of noise pollution at the airport