Uptown

Transport

Uptown is one of the bus transit hubs for the Brisbane CBD. Many bus routes commence and terminate under Uptown at the Queen Street bus station on the Albert Street level of the complex.

Uptown has a multi-level car park with 1,450 spaces.

Layout

Uptown is built into the sloping terrain of the Brisbane CBD, with entrances connecting to different internal levels from surrounding streets. Retail floors are arranged above and between these access points and are linked by internal lifts and escalators, with the centre’s cinema complex, operated by Event Cinemas, located on an upper level. The Queen Street bus station is integrated into the building at the Albert Street frontage, providing direct public transport access into the centre.

History

20th Century

Myer Centre was built on land that was originally occupied by Hotel Carlton, New York Hotel, Telegraph Building, and the Barry and Roberts department store.

Hotel Carlton was built in 1891 and was located on the corner of Queen and Elizabeth Streets. It was redeveloped in the 1920s and closed in 1985.

Next door to Hotel Carlton was the Telegraph News Company which was built in 1891 and operated until 1963 when it relocated to Bowen Hills. The building had been refurbished and was taken over for use as an office by Queensland Newspapers City which the building was renamed Newspaper House.

The New York Hotel was originally built in 1866 as a shop and dwelling of a well-known butcher, James Collins. It was later repurposed as the European Hotel, which renamed in 1902 to the York Hotel. In 1928 it purchased by a brewer Castlemaine Perkins who demolished the building and built a new three storey hotel known as the New York Hotel which opened in 1929. The hotel excluding the fine upper façade was demolished in 1986.

The Barry & Roberts department store building was built in 1921 and featured a department store, grocery store and the company's head office. This store had frontages on both Queen and Elizabeth Streets with the Elizabeth Street level being one floor lower than the Queen Street level. Barry & Roberts was sold to Condraulics Pty Limited (a subsidiary of Industrial Equity Limited) on 11 December 1985. The building excluding the facade was demolished in 1986.

Construction of Myer Centre started in late 1986 and required the excavation of 375,000 cubic metres of earth, to a depth of 22 metres (eight metres below the Brisbane River level), which was the largest urban excavation in Australia at the time.

The Myer Centre developed by the Remm Group Property Limited on the block of land on Queen and Elizabeth Streets. Remm Group Property Limited sold the $385 million development to Chase Corp (Aust) Ltd. during the construction phase for $470 million. Using facadism, the facades of four historic buildings previously located on the site were retained and restored. The historic facades of the Hotel Carlton, New York Hotel, Newspaper House, and the Barry and Roberts department store were restored and retained. The interior design emphasised a Victorian theme, utilising ornate railing and fittings in brass and green, with terrazzo floor tiles.

21st Century

In August 2000 Gandel Retail Trust announced a $30 million redevelopment of The Myer Centre. This included the addition of a Coles Express supermarket, which was later rebranded as Coles Central.

In October 2000 Tops closed down to make way for a cinema complex. During that month around 20,000 people attended the farewell free rides.

In April 2001 Kerry Packer sought approval from Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to establish a joint cinema complex with Amalgamated Holdings’ Greater Union on the former space of Tops.

On 15 November 2001 the Greater Union-Hoyts Cinema complex opened on the top level of the centre. The opening of the cinema complex resulted in the closure of the Hoyts Cinema on Level A and two Greater Union complexes in Albert Street. Greater Union controlled 3 screens whilst Hoyts controlled 5 screens of the complex. In 2005 the complex was taken over by Birch, Carroll & Coyle which was rebranded to Event Cinemas in 2010.

In 2002 the Target discount department store opened in the former space of the Hoyts cinema on level A.

In October 2002 Gandel Retail Trust merged with Colonial First State to form CFS Gandel.

In 2006, Colonial First State acquired 25% stake of the centre as part of the merger with of Gandel Retail Trust.

In July 2007, the Sizzler restaurant had closed down with the stairs being removed and replaced with a sushi kiosk in 2008. The underground restaurant was replaced by a storage area and a small reconfiguration of the carpark.

On 26 March 2012 ISPT Core Fund purchased a 50% stake of The Myer Centre for $366 million with the centre valued at $732 million.

On 3 November 2014, CFS Retail Property Trust was renamed to Novion Property Group and in June 2015 Novion Property Group merged with Federation Limited to form Vicinity Centres. This resulted in Vicinity Centres having the final 25% ownership of The Myer Centre. In September 2016 Vicinity Centres sold 25% stake to ISPT resulting in 25% ownership from Vicinity Centres and 75% from ISPT.

Tenants

Uptown has 63,025m² of floor space. The major retailers include Target, Coles, Beach House Bar & Grill, Dopamine Land, Funhouse and Event Cinemas.

Incidents and controversy

On August 1994, a Brisbane City Council bus driver ejected a university student from a bus and punched and pushed him against a glass door of The Myer Centre after he accused the student of not having a valid bus ticket and refused to leave the bus. A bus inspector was present and did not intervene, so police were called. This incident was witnessed by at least six people. The student was left with bruises, headaches and a swollen finger.

On 2 November 1997, after three weeks of controversy The Myer Centre was forced to backflip its policy of kicking out customers because of their race, colour, dress or hairstyle due to incidents of shoplifting from a group of youths a few years back. Around 100 protesters walked through the centre chanting: “Shame Myer, Shame!’’.

On 10 August 2001, serial pest Peter Hore interrupted a lingerie launch hosted by supermodel Sarah O’Hare inside Myer by leaping on to the stage whilst she addressed to the audience. Myer security pounced on Hore who was dressed in army fatigues and holding a didgeridoo and evicted him from the store.

On 1 April 2005, a 64-year-old woman was stabbed inside a Sizzler restaurant by her 36-year-old son during an attempted murder because wanted to kill his mother because he believed she had mistreated him as a child. The woman ended up in a critical but stable condition in hospital and survived. She suffered multiple stab wounds to the head, face and upper body and doctors could not save one of her eyes. Several bystanders tried to restrain the man, but he managed to escape before police arrived. The man fled to Northern New South Wales but handed himself into Tweed Heads police station a few days later upon hearing his mother had survived the attack. The man was sentenced to 12 years in jail for the attempted murder.

Nearly a year later that same Sizzler restaurant became a scene to another incident after rat poison was discovered inside the salad bars on 25 March 2006. A female customer told staff she found the substance in her soup and fortunately no one was reportedly ill. A 57 year old woman who turned out to be mentally unstable had been charged over the contamination of salad bars at the Sizzler restaurants in Toowong and The Myer Centre. As a result over the two rat poison incidents Sizzler was forced to shut down its salad bars nationwide.