There is a shortage conversation happening in the Queensland construction industry. And for once, it is not about housing.
According to the Property Council of Australia’s No Room to Grow report, prepared by SA1 Property, Greater Brisbane’s industrial land supply will be exhausted in less than five years at current absorption rates. Some precincts will run out in three to four.
That might sound like a problem for property investors and logistics companies. It is. But it is also a problem for every builder, tradie, and construction supplier operating in South East Queensland right now.
And since that report was published in mid-2025, the situation has not improved. If anything, the pressure is building faster than the data anticipated.
What Is Actually Being Absorbed
Between 2019 and 2024, Brisbane absorbed 1,084 hectares of industrial land. The report notes that is roughly equivalent to the entire Wacol, Richlands, Darra, and Carole Park industrial precincts combined.
The five-year average absorption rate is now tracking at around 210 hectares per year. That figure is a record. And in early 2026, independent commentary continues to confirm the trajectory. Ray White Commercial’s Michael Shadforth told media this month that available supply on the Sunshine Coast had fallen by around 50 percent in just 18 months, and that land previously expected to last a decade was being absorbed in under three years. He cited No Room to Grow directly, saying the findings mirror conditions on the ground.
At the current pace, Greater Brisbane has around 4.88 years of industrial land supply remaining across the whole market. Some precincts are already tighter. The West precinct, one of the busiest industrial corridors in the city, has approximately 3.1 years of development-ready supply left.
The Olympic Build Is About to Arrive on Top of This
The timing could not be more difficult.
Brisbane 2032 venue construction is now formally underway. The Games Independent Infrastructure and Coordination Authority has appointed Unite32, a joint venture of Laing O’Rourke and AECOM, to deliver 17 new and upgraded venues across Queensland. Procurement for around $2.5 billion in supply chain opportunities is open now through the Brisbane 2032 Supplier Portal.
Preparing those venues will require, in the words of industry publication Quarry, millions of tonnes of aggregates, concrete, asphalt, and other materials, sourced and moved across the state over years of sustained activity.
All of that material needs to be staged and stored somewhere. It needs yards. Compounds. Laydown space. Industrial Outdoor Storage.
And IOS is precisely the asset class that is disappearing fastest.
The Part That Directly Affects Builders
Industrial Outdoor Storage sites are the yards where the construction sector operates behind the scenes. Materials laydown. Precast storage. Pipe stockpiles. Timber staging areas. Equipment compounds. Container storage for site deliveries.
No Room to Grow identifies IOS as the only asset class in the industrial property market that is actively shrinking. Every time an IOS site gets redeveloped into a warehouse, the open-air storage it provided does not come back.
IOS is unique in the industrial property market as the only asset type actively decreasing in stock. Once developed, it is rarely replaced.
For builders working on projects in Brisbane’s inner suburbs, competition for yards close to the city is already intensifying. The report specifically flags Pinkenba on the TradeCoast as a critical concentration of IOS that faces compounding pressure from both warehouse development and Olympic construction logistics.
There is also a serious labour dimension. Construction Skills Queensland projects a shortfall of around 50,000 construction workers in Queensland by 2026-27, driven by the combined weight of the Olympic pipeline, housing targets, and the state’s $120 billion infrastructure program. When workers and materials both become harder to move efficiently because IOS and industrial land have been squeezed out of the areas that matter, the pressure compounds.
What Happened to Rents
Prime industrial rents in Brisbane increased by around 50 percent between 2021 and mid-2025, rising from approximately $112 per square metre to $168.50 per square metre on a six-month moving average. That structural shift in the cost base of industrial operations is a direct result of years of constrained supply.
In 2026, conditions have moderated somewhat. According to Knight Frank’s Australian Horizon 2026 report, face rents have largely held firm but incentives have edged higher as vacancy has ticked up from its record lows, with Brisbane sitting at around 3.9 percent vacancy in Q1 2026 following a wave of recent completions. Cushman and Wakefield’s Q1 2026 Brisbane marketbeat confirms rental growth remains above long-term benchmarks despite the slightly higher vacancy.
The key point for builders is this: the 50 percent cumulative increase in the cost base of industrial property is not reversing. The market is normalising, not unwinding. And the structural constraint on land supply means that, as new supply is absorbed into the Olympic and housing pipeline, the pressure on rents and costs will build again.
What Happens When the Land Gets Pushed to the Fringe
When industrial land in established precincts runs out, activity shifts further from the city. No Room to Grow quantifies what that actually costs. Comparing an established Wacol site to an outlying Willowbank location, the research shows outbound freight costs to major retail and distribution networks are significantly higher from Willowbank. Access to the rest of the industrial network is weaker. And the population within 30 minutes, a proxy for workforce availability, is far smaller.
For a supplier or manufacturer that relocates to service fringe land, those inefficiencies are baked into every delivery and every freight invoice. Those costs flow downstream to builders.
The Policy Response Has Begun, But Slowly
The Queensland Government is not ignoring the issue. The SEQ Regional Plan review, ShapingSEQ 2023, acknowledges the need for a regional approach to industrial land planning and commits to establishing a framework to monitor supply and project demand. The Crisafulli Government has also launched a $180.6 million Sovereign Industry Development Fund, with first-round applications closing in February 2026, targeting sovereign manufacturing capabilities.
But the Property Council’s specific call for a $500 million Industrial Infrastructure Fund targeted at employment land remains unanswered as a dedicated measure. The SEQ regional industrial land framework is still in development. And the clock is not pausing.
City of Moreton Bay Mayor Peter Flannery put it plainly at the report’s launch: the council was being forced to turn away 60 percent of industrial land inquiries due to a lack of available land.
What Builders Should Watch
This is not a crisis that lands overnight. It builds slowly, through rising rents, tighter yard availability, longer freight distances, and supplier cost pressures that gradually work their way into project budgets.
The builders and businesses that understand this dynamic now are better placed to adapt. That might mean locking in supplier relationships with well-located operators before they are forced to relocate. It might mean factoring higher logistics costs into estimates. It might mean being more deliberate about where materials are staged on projects as the Olympic pipeline starts to compete for the same space.
The industrial land crunch in South East Queensland is a construction supply chain story. The difference now compared to 12 months ago is that the Olympic build has moved from a future problem to a present one. The demand is arriving. The land is not growing.
General information only. This article does not constitute financial, legal, or professional advice. Readers should seek independent guidance suited to their specific circumstances.
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