Queens Wharf

LOCATION: Brisbane CBD

TYPE OF PROJECT: Integrated resort development

YEAR(S): 2016 – 2024

CLIENT: Multiplex

CONSTRUCTION VALUE: $3B (total project)

In April 2020, Cogent Scaffolding was thrilled to announce that they had secured the major contract scaffolding works for the Queens Wharf project. Cogent Scaffolding worked with Multiplex for 2 years to secure this contract and were very excited about the opportunity to work on this premiere project for Brisbane. Negotiating this contract was hard work; a project this size takes years and years of planning and although Cogent had been on site completing early works for many years, that was no guarantee that they would be awarded the major contract. After a long and gruelling contract negotiation, with hundreds of hours of behind-the-scenes work from Team Cogent, they were finally awarded the major contract scaffolding works.

Queens Wharf is a new world-class integrated resort development that is being constructed and will put Brisbane on the map as a tourism, leisure and entertainment destination. Destination Brisbane Consortium is delivering the multi-billion-dollar development, which covers more than 12 hectares of CBD land. Queen’s Wharf will transform an underutilised area into a breathtaking and vibrant oasis for locals and visitors, blending beautifully repurposed heritage buildings with stunning contemporary architecture.

The types of scaffold Cogent has completed on this site include perimeter, access, birdcage, cantilevered scaffold, hung stairs, form support, construction and stretcher stairs, bridges, and enough handrail to go all around the length of Australia!

A project of this size and the length of time spent on the project (Cogent has currently been on site for 5 years!) takes superior project management all the way from the scaffolders on the ground, the Leading Hands and Site Supervisors, the Project Managers and Contract Administrators. All must work together seamlessly to ensure the effective management of the project and that all lead times are achieved on time and on budget.

Cogent has faced many challenges head-on throughout this project but the biggest challenge by far is the coordination of labour throughout the 9 different zones on this project; The Integrated Resort Development itself has 5 zones, then there’s the Public Realm which is the waterfront section and 3 heritage buildings being restored (Printery, DPI & Harris Terrace buildings), so it equates to having 9 major projects all within one huge project! Each part of this project has it’s own Leading Hand and a team of scaffolders managing each section, which is then overseen by a Site Supervisor and then a Project Manager. They have one Contract Administrator whose full-time job is the Queen’s Wharf project! Other challenges have included the constant changing of design, coordinating engineering sign off’s and the fact that each day there are around 200 Multiplex staff (the client) on site and each of them forms a relationship with the Cogent staff so there are constant queries, questions, emails, site instructions, safety observations….you get the idea!

To date there have been no major safety concerns on this site which is in itself and major achievement; this is a tidy job and it’s run well by all the players involved.