At a launch event in Hamilton last night, the team behind The Gallery explained how a two-year site acquisition, a decision to retain all retail, and a building designed around a specific buyer all point to the same long-term position.

Racecourse Road has been waiting for something like this for a while.

One of Brisbane’s most recognisable suburban high streets, Hamilton’s main strip has long had the bones for something great. The river is close. The suburb is among Brisbane’s most affluent. The street itself has real character. What it has lacked is a development willing to commit fully to the precinct, rather than just occupy a corner of it.

GRAYA’s The Gallery, launched at an event in Hamilton last night, is that commitment. And listening to Co-Founders Rob and Andrew Gray explain how the project came together, the thinking behind it is as instructive as the product itself.

A Site That Took Two to Three Years to Assemble

The Gallery sits at 63 to 71 Racecourse Road, across a 3,614 square metre site that also incorporates 12 Balowrie Street. It will deliver 48 apartments across four storeys, designed by Brisbane architecture firm bureau^proberts, with eight boutique ground-floor retail tenancies and an 800 square metre rooftop retreat complete with pool, yoga lawn, alfresco gym and panoramic city views.

The site stretches 150 metres along Racecourse Road, from Kent Street to Balowrie Street. That frontage is not accidental. GRAYA set out from the start to assemble the largest single landholding on the street, because anything smaller would have prevented the ground-floor retail they had in mind.

The challenge was that the land had been held by the same family for decades, spread across 17 separate shopfront tenancies. Acquiring it meant negotiating with seven different family members scattered across different locations, each with their own relationship to the land.

“We gave up on it probably three or four times and then it came back. It was just that persistence that got it over the line.” — Rob Gray, GRAYA

The deal ultimately came together over steak and beers at the Hamilton Hotel on a Sunday afternoon. But what closed it was not the price. It was trust. The family wanted to know the land would become something their father, who had owned it for decades, would have been proud of. GRAYA’s reputation in Hamilton, built over more than a decade delivering prestige homes including Scorpia and Larq, gave them the confidence to proceed.

For builders and developers watching on, the lesson is a familiar one. The best sites are rarely the easy ones. They take patience, relationship-building, and a willingness to walk away and come back.

Retaining the Retail: A Long-Term Play

The most significant decision GRAYA made on The Gallery is one that will not appear in the renders. Rather than selling the ground-floor retail tenancies to recover capital, the company is retaining all of them.

The reasoning is straightforward. By holding the retail, GRAYA can control who occupies it, work with operators to ensure they succeed, and protect the quality of the street over the long term. The alternative, selling to the highest bidder and losing control of what goes in, would undermine exactly what the project is trying to achieve.

“Any retail precinct needs them all to live off each other. It is not a flash in the pan.” — Shaun Mets, GRAYA

The team was clear at the launch that the focus is on residents first, not maximum rent. There will be no major chains. The intent is a curated mix of boutique dining, wellness, and lifestyle operators that serve the building’s residents and activate the street for the wider suburb.

It is a capital-intensive approach. It also means the quality of Racecourse Road remains in GRAYA’s hands well after the apartments settle. For anyone assessing how mixed-use projects hold their value over time, that is a deliberate and unusual choice.

Designed for the Rightsizer

The Gallery has been positioned from the outset around a specific buyer: someone leaving a large family home in one of Brisbane’s inner suburbs and looking for something that suits the next stage of life. The panel on the night described them variously as rightsizers and, more precisely, brightsizers.

The distinction is meaningful. These buyers are not downsizing reluctantly. They are choosing quality, amenity, and a sense of community. Many will call it their last property. And they are arriving with equity, expectations, and a clear idea of what they want.

WHITEFOX Real Estate, which is handling sales, described a buyer who wants to walk to the river, access wellness facilities daily, lock up and leave when they travel, and remain in the suburb where they have spent decades building their lives. The 21 different floor plans across the 48 apartments reflect the diversity within that buyer type. Of the 48 apartments in the building, 26 had already been sold before last night’s event.

The rooftop was a non-negotiable from the start. With two and three bedroom apartments under 50 square metres shorter on private outdoor space than the homes buyers are leaving, the communal rooftop becomes the trade. An 800 square metre retreat with a pool, plunge pools, gym, yoga lawn and views over Hamilton and the river is that trade done at a high standard.

Architecturally, bureau^proberts has drawn on Hamilton’s character throughout. The Stone Arbour at street level references corbelling techniques from the suburb’s heritage structures. The design incorporates broad verandahs, layered trellis gardens, and a central pedestrian arcade connecting Racecourse Road to Kent Street, offering the kind of laneway energy the street has long been missing.

A Bet on Racecourse Road, Not Just a Building

The Gallery is not GRAYA’s only ambition for the street. Rob and Andrew Gray have been open about the bigger picture: they believe Racecourse Road can become for Brisbane what Double Bay is for Sydney, or what James Street already is locally, but for an older, more established demographic with the purchasing power to match.

They are not alone in that view. Fortis has plans approved for a four-storey mixed-use project at 53 Racecourse Road. Other developers are circling. The Gray brothers believe the street will look fundamentally different within five years.

What makes their position distinctive is the commitment to stay. Despite weekly approaches to take their model to Sydney and Melbourne, GRAYA intends to remain focused on inner Brisbane and the southern Gold Coast.

“This is the best place to be building and developing in the country. We are just going to stick it out in our backyard and stay here.” — Andrew Gray, GRAYA

That conviction extends to pace. GRAYA is running two cranes on the build, a first for the company, specifically to move faster. They want to deliver. The appetite is there, the site is assembled, and the pre-sales have validated the product.

What It Means for the Industry

The Gallery launch was, on the surface, a product showcase. The renders are impressive. The views are real. The location is genuinely strong.

But the more useful material came in the panel discussion on the night, when the conversation moved away from the product and toward the process. A difficult site assembled through patience and relationships. A retail strategy built around long-term quality rather than short-term capital recovery. A product designed around a real buyer with specific needs, not a demographic profile on a spreadsheet.

GRAYA has spent more than a decade building prestige homes in Brisbane’s inner suburbs. The Gallery is the company’s first multi-residential development in Hamilton, and its first project to combine residential and retail in this way. The lessons from that transition, how to hold a vision over years of negotiation, how to resist the temptation to optimise for short-term return, how to design a building around a community rather than a market segment, are worth paying attention to regardless of your scale.

The construction industry in Brisbane is as active as it has been in a long time. The Olympics timeline has sharpened focus and investment. Buyers with equity are moving, and the inner-ring suburbs are where much of that activity is landing.

GRAYA’s approach to The Gallery offers a clear framework for operating in that environment: patient site acquisition, product integrity, and a long-term position on the precinct you are building in.

That is how you build something worth driving past.

To explore The Gallery and GRAYA’s full portfolio of projects across Brisbane and the Gold Coast, visit graya.com.au.

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Author: TGB Editorial