These suburbs cleared for takeoff
One of the most powerful catalysts for property market growth is new transport infrastructure. And the biggest kicker is always a new motorway that can get you from A to B faster and less flustered.
So, which Brisbane suburbs are cleared for takeoff thanks to Legacy Way?
Western suburbs lift a legacy of new road tunnel
Legacy Way has already boosted property prospects in Brisbane’s western suburbs. The positive impact has been quite surprising and immediate, in both the sales and rental markets, which is great news for owner-occupiers and investors alike.
The reason? This new route has opened up our western suburbs to the airport. Enquiry for western suburbs homes and acreage has jumped significantly in the weeks since the $1.5 billion tunnel opened, linking Toowong with the Inner City Bypass (ICB) at Kelvin Grove and on to Airport Link.
Our associate Jennifer Cavanough, director of Patrick Dixon Executive Residential Leasing, says her executive clients who commute interstate regularly are now saying Toowong, Taringa, Kenmore, Chapel Hill and even Brookfield are on their radar.
Previously they would only consider living in suburbs near the airport, like Ascot or Hamilton, but now that our desirable west side locations are directly linked to the airport, their residential options have greatly expanded.
Legacy Way completes Brisbane’s $10 billion Transapex road network (including the ICB, Clem 7 Tunnel, Go Between Bridge, and Airport Link), Australia’s largest urban road network infrastructure development. Online interactive mapping shows the 4.6km tunnel cuts up to 20 minutes from a journey between Indooroopilly and Brisbane Airport at peak times, avoiding nine sets of traffic lights.
So buyers are also expanding their horizons. We’re already seeing heightened interest in the western acreage suburbs since Legacy Way opened.
Take Maura Savage, for example. Her family operates a business in Papua New Guinea, and they’ve just bought acreage at Brookfield. “My husband grew up at Brookfield and always wanted to return,” she told us. “Now Legacy Way means we can, without the worry of traffic and congestion on our frequent trips to and from the airport.”
Legacy Way has not only halved travel time from the Centenary Bridge to the ICB, it’s made a big difference in terms of easing congestion on Milton Road and Coronation Drive. That spreads the benefits to the inner and middle ring western suburbs as well.
Brisbane City Council figures list Coronation Drive and Milton Road among the city’s most congested roads. In its last Key Corridors Performance Report, which measured average vehicles per day July-December 2014, Coronation Drive was the busiest with 75,560 vehicles, while Milton Road carried 50,954 a day.
Council modeling predicts Legacy Way will take 3,000 cars a day off Milton Road and 7,000 cars a day off Coronation Drive.
And it isn’t only frequent flyers who’ll benefit from improved access and travel time to the airport. The whole area around the airport is undergoing massive expansion, making it Brisbane’s second biggest employment location after the CBD.
The National Institute of Economic and Industry Research (NIEIR) predicts the Australia TradeCoast region, which takes in Brisbane Airport and the Port of Brisbane, will have a workforce of more than 140,000 by 2029.
Expanding lifestyle assets, like the $450 million facelift of Indooroopilly Shopping Centre, better access and less congestion, plus the great buying still available mean Brisbane’s western suburbs are now really cleared for takeoff. It all adds up to an incredible infrastructure stimulus for our western acreage suburbs.
