Train travellers will soon enter the Fortitude Valley railway station via a massive glass cube after Brisbane City Council gave a preliminary green light to a $75 million office tower on the site.
The 18-storey Valley Metro redevelopment, approved today by the council's planning committee, has been touted as the benchmark development for the future of the Fortitude Valley and Bowen Hills area.
It will straddle the Brunswick Street station on a set of eight metre steel trusses and incorporate a publicly-accessible "urban room" made from glass, as well as 13 floors of commercial office space.
"It's destined to become one of the truly unique spaces in the Fortitude Valley because it is the entrance to the railway," architect Peter Edwards said.
The Bovis Lend Lease project has been designed by Brisbane firm Hassell and will incorporate an abstract urban streetscape motif on the facade.
Pedestrians and workers will walk through a five metre-high, 27 metre-long glass cube to enter the building or access the train station.
"It's the foyer of the building as well as the public realm at the front of the building," Mr Edwards said.
Building over a railway station had proved a major construction and design challenge for the team, which opted for a steel-framed structure, just the second to be built in Brisbane.
"The entire building touches the ground with a single kind of ballet toe of a structure, it's a very complex and tricky building," Mr Edwards said.
The council's neighbourhood planning and development assessment committee chair Amanda Cooper praised the project for its innovative design.
"The facade is really outstanding," Cr Cooper said.
The tower will have no extra parking spaces due to its proximity to the train station.
It was not known when construction would begin, however Mr Edwards said the project had already attracted interest from potential tenants.
"It's a building without precedent in the Fortitude Valley so a lot of people were interested in the project, so it's receiving some very decent patronage and all of those things bode really well for a quick start on site," he said.