One of the last development scale landholdings on the James Street fringe has changed hands after a competitive off market campaign. The proposal that follows it is ambitious, and the reason GRAYA won the site says something useful about how delivery records are now being valued.
GRAYA has acquired 19 Chester Street, Newstead for $40 million and lodged a development application with Brisbane City Council for The Silo, a residential led precinct of 170 residences that will connect James Street to Gasworks through a new retail and dining laneway.
It is a landmark acquisition for one of south east Queensland’s most established builder developers, and a turning point for a pocket of Newstead that has carried approvals without a shovel in the ground for the better part of four years.
The 3,016sqm site sits at the intersection of Chester Street and Morse Street, less than 100 metres from James Street and about 125 metres from The Calile Hotel. With more than 165 metres of frontage, it is one of the last development scale landholdings on the immediate fringe of the James Street precinct. Sites like this one do not come around often, and when they do, they rarely come quietly.
Why GRAYA won the site
The campaign was run off market. Tim Jones at Chesters led an invite only process involving many of Australia’s leading property developers. Eighty per cent of the parties invited to engage submitted offers, which tells you plenty about how the site was read by the market.
GRAYA was selected on the strength of its offer and terms, and on its proven track record for delivery. That second part is worth sitting with for a moment. In a market where vendors have watched approvals lapse, settlements fall over and schemes get value managed into something unrecognisable, the ability to actually finish what you start has become a commercial asset in its own right. It buys access to stock that never reaches an open campaign.
GRAYA has been building that record in public. The company designs, develops and constructs under one roof, and it has been willing to put its own name on the finished product rather than disappear behind a marketing brand. Its recent work includes the expansion of one of the Gold Coast’s most constrained beachfront sites at Palm Beach, alongside a growing inner Brisbane portfolio. None of that is decoration. It is the reason a vendor picked them out of a field of national names.
What is proposed at The Silo
The application proposes 170 residences, with ground floor retail and dining along a new laneway called Silo Lane, a health and wellness amenity level, communal resident spaces and a landscaped public realm. GRAYA has put the estimated gross revenue of the proposed project at more than $700 million.
The resident amenity is where the ambition shows most clearly. A two level skydeck will carry more than 2000sqm of amenity, positioned directly above one of Brisbane’s premium lifestyle hubs. GRAYA has been open about the target it has set itself.
We pledge to deliver a world-class building that outperforms all other residential offerings in Brisbane. The Silo is the residential offering the James Street precinct has been missing, and the design reflects the scale of that opportunity.
ROB GRAY, CO FOUNDER AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, GRAYA
A cylindrical form, and a name that follows it
The Silo has been designed by Brisbane practice Bureau Proberts, a returning GRAYA collaborator after the pair worked together on the Canvas apartment building at Bulimba. The project takes its name from a bold cylindrical architectural form, which GRAYA says is intended to make it one of Brisbane’s most recognisable buildings in the years ahead. The design reinterprets the industrial character of the area through a contemporary subtropical response.
That is a considered move rather than a stylistic one. Newstead spent a century as a working precinct of gasworks, wool stores and light industry, and the buildings that have landed best in the area are the ones that acknowledge it. A silo form on a corner site with 165 metres of frontage is a legible piece of city making, not just a facade treatment.
The ground plane is doing the heavy lifting
At ground level, landscaped public spaces and Silo Lane are proposed to create a more permeable connection between James Street and Gasworks. The new retail and dining laneway is intended to bring energy and connectivity to the James Street precinct and support a more active pedestrian experience.
Anyone who has walked that stretch knows the gap it addresses. James Street and Gasworks sit close together but do not talk to each other particularly well, and the block between them has long been a detour rather than a route. Opening it up is the kind of public benefit that carries real weight in an assessment, and it is increasingly the currency that gets ambitious schemes through inner Brisbane approvals.
Lodging the application brings together the commercial, planning and design work behind the site. We have tested the proposal against the way people will live, move through the precinct and use the ground plane. The result is a proposal that works at two levels, as a place to live and as part of Newstead.
ANDREW GRAY, CO FOUNDER AND MANAGING DIRECTOR, GRAYA
A site that has been waiting
The block has history. Brisbane City Council development records for the property show earlier applications over the land, including a 2022 proposal by Frasers Property for a 17 storey residential building of roughly 142 units with ground level terrace homes, and a later revised scheme by Rothelowman for two towers of about 70 dwellings. Neither was built.
On a site of comparable size, GRAYA’s proposal puts forward 170 residences. That is a meaningful step up in yield on land that already sits inside an established mixed use zone with services, transport and a mature retail precinct at the door. With apartment supply across inner Brisbane still well short of what the pipeline needs, a scheme that lifts delivery on an approved and serviced block is worth noting on its own terms.
The third piece of GRAYA’s James Street footprint
The Silo does not land in isolation. GRAYA has been quietly building a position around the precinct for some time.
In November 2025 the company lodged plans for The Pavilion at 54 to 56 James Street, a six storey retail and commercial building designed with Koichi Takada Architects on the former Bed Bath N’ Table site, which GRAYA acquired for a reported $20 million. Industry reporting has the company progressing a further commercial project on James Street alongside it.
The Silo adds the residential leg. Retail, dining and commercial floorspace on James Street itself, and now 170 homes on the Newstead side of it, joined by a laneway. Read together, that is a developer building a precinct position rather than a single project.
There is a consistent instinct running through both proposals. The Pavilion is designed around an open to air laneway at its core. The Silo is organised around Silo Lane. In each case the building is designed to pull people through it rather than past it, which is a fair reading of what James Street has always done well and what the blocks behind it have never quite managed.
From luxury houses to a $700 million proposal
The scale here is worth putting in context. GRAYA was founded in 2012 by brothers Rob and Andrew Gray, building luxury houses in Brisbane’s blue chip suburbs. It moved into boutique apartment buildings from there, with Maison and Chalk at New Farm and Kloud and Ripple at Palm Beach, then into larger residential and commercial work across Brisbane and the Gold Coast. The company was named Australian Developer of the Year at The Urban Developer Awards.
It has kept the same structure throughout. GRAYA designs, develops and builds its own projects, which holds decisions about build quality and construction method inside the same business as the design. At 170 residences and an estimated gross revenue of more than $700 million, The Silo is comfortably the largest residential proposal the company has put forward.
THE GOOD BUILDER TAKE
The headline number here is $40 million, but the more interesting number is eighty per cent. When four in five invited developers put an offer on the table and the vendor still picks the buyer with the best delivery record rather than simply the biggest number, that is a market pricing certainty over optimism. It is a healthy signal after several years of the opposite. The Silo now has to be delivered, and GRAYA has set the bar publicly and deliberately high. That is a good problem to have, and Brisbane is better for the ambition being on the table.
What happens next
The application now sits with Brisbane City Council for assessment. Design detail, staging and construction timing will firm up through that process, and the proposal remains subject to approval.
For a precinct that has spent four years watching approvals sit still, the more important development is that someone with a record of finishing things has taken the site on. You can read more about the project and GRAYA’s wider portfolio at graya.com.au.
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Frequently asked questions
The Silo is a proposed residential led precinct at 19 Chester Street, Newstead in Brisbane. GRAYA has lodged a development application with Brisbane City Council proposing 170 residences, ground floor retail and dining, a health and wellness amenity level, communal resident spaces and a landscaped public realm.
The 3,016sqm site sits at the intersection of Chester Street and Morse Street in Newstead, less than 100 metres from James Street and about 125 metres from The Calile Hotel. It has more than 165 metres of frontage and is one of the last development scale landholdings on the immediate fringe of the James Street precinct.
GRAYA acquired the site for $40 million through an off market campaign led by Tim Jones at Chesters. The invite only process drew offers from eighty per cent of the parties invited to engage, and GRAYA was selected on the strength of its offer and terms together with its track record for delivery.
The Silo was designed by Brisbane architecture practice Bureau Proberts. The building takes its name from a cylindrical architectural form, and the design reinterprets the industrial character of Newstead through a contemporary subtropical response.
Silo Lane is a proposed retail and dining laneway at the ground level of the development. It is intended to create a more permeable pedestrian connection between the James Street precinct and Gasworks, supported by landscaped public spaces at street level.
No. The development application has been lodged with Brisbane City Council and remains subject to assessment and approval. Design detail, staging and construction timing will be confirmed through that process.
Last updated: 6 August 2026. Acquisition value, site area, residence numbers, amenity detail, gross revenue estimate and campaign information are drawn from GRAYA’s project communications. Earlier application history for the property is drawn from Brisbane City Council’s Development.i public record.
This article is general information only. It does not take into account your particular circumstances and should not be relied upon in place of professional guidance specific to your business, project or contract.
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