Brisbane 2032: The Olympic Games and the City-Reshaping Infrastructure

The Brisbane 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games, awarded to southeast Queensland by the International Olympic Committee in 2021 as the first games decided by the new "future host" process that the IOC adopted to improve the bidding economics and the host city outcomes, is reshaping the infrastructure investment planning and the urban development priorities of Brisbane and the southeast Queensland region in the years of preparation that the 2032 deadline creates. The games' legacy infrastructure, including the new stadium, the athlete's village, the aquatic centre, and the transport upgrades that the Olympic host city program requires, is providing the forcing function for infrastructure investment that Brisbane's growing population has needed and that the Olympic deadline has moved from aspiration to commitment.

The Gabba redevelopment, the planned major redevelopment of The Gabba Cricket Ground and AFL venue to provide the main Olympic stadium at the centre of the Gabba precinct and Woolloongabba's broader urban renewal, is one of the most contested and most significant urban development decisions in Brisbane's recent history. The project's scale, the heritage impact on the existing Gabba, and the cost-benefit analysis that the stadium's Olympic use compared to its long-term sporting function generates have all been subjects of public debate and political scrutiny that the Olympic host city program's complexity creates.

The transport infrastructure investment that the Olympics is accelerating, including the Cross River Rail project that will add the Brisbane CBD's first underground rail tunnel and the station connections that the project creates in the inner south, provides the public transport capacity and the network connectivity that Brisbane's growing population and the Olympic visitor peak require. The Cross River Rail's legacy beyond the Olympics, improving the public transport accessibility of the south Brisbane and Woolloongabba communities and the inner southern suburbs that the current surface rail network serves inadequately, justifies the investment on both the Olympic use case and the long-term urban transport use case.

The international visibility that the 2032 Olympics provides for Brisbane as a destination and as a city of aspiration will shape the city's tourism and investment profile for the decade before and the decade after the games in ways that the economic modelling of Olympic impact consistently documents. The Brisbane that the world will see in August 2032 will be a different and more complete city than the Brisbane of 2022, and the planning decisions, the infrastructure investments, and the community development that the Olympic preparation catalyses will be the primary engine of that transformation.

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