Industrial property in Redbank, Brisbane — lease, sale & leaseback and build-to-suit

Local context

Why Redbank is strategic

Redbank's industrial identity was forged by rail. When Queensland's original North Ipswich Railway Workshops outgrew their site, new railway workshops opened at Redbank in 1958 on the site of a decommissioned army camp — built for steam locomotive production just as the network was converting to diesel, and so becoming Queensland Rail's diesel-locomotive centre. That rail-servicing tradition continued for decades and left the suburb with large, well-serviced industrial landholdings directly abutting the motorway network — precisely the kind of parcel that is almost impossible to assemble in established Brisbane suburbs today.

The defining modern estate is the Redbank Motorway Estate, developed by Goodman across roughly 149 hectares — the original 62-hectare rail yard plus an 87-hectare land-bank — making it one of the largest single industrial landholdings in South-East Queensland. The estate's standout feature is a privately funded, toll-free slip-lane directly onto the Ipswich Motorway, putting the Port of Brisbane within around 28 kilometres and under 25 minutes' drive without a single toll or low bridge to navigate. Major logistics operators have committed at real scale: DB Schenker (trading as Zenexus) occupies close to 47,000 square metres, TNT around 27,850 square metres, and Northline (via Tyres4U) around 23,300 square metres with upgraded fire systems for tyre storage. Australia Post, Coles and FedEx also run distribution operations from the estate, and Officeworks has committed to a 77,000-square-metre warehouse — among the largest single facilities in the corridor.

Redbank's second defining feature is sovereign defence manufacturing. Rheinmetall Defence Australia's Military Vehicle Centre of Excellence (MILVEHCOE) — an 11-hectare, roughly $170 million facility opened in 2020 — serves as the company's Australia-New Zealand headquarters and the delivery hub for the multi-billion-dollar LAND 400 Phase 2 program, producing and sustaining Boxer combat reconnaissance vehicles alongside logistics-vehicle upgrade work under LAND 121. The facility has created several hundred direct jobs and stands as one of the most advanced military vehicle manufacturing plants in the country — a rare instance of heavy, high-value manufacturing establishing itself in a growth-corridor suburb otherwise dominated by logistics.

Connectivity underpins both halves of Redbank's story. The suburb sits directly on the Ipswich Motorway with its own dedicated estate access, on the Ipswich rail line via Redbank station, and within easy reach of the Centenary and Logan motorways further east. For occupiers, that means fast, largely uncongested freight movement to the Port of Brisbane, Brisbane Airport and the CBD, while the depth of rail and defence heritage gives the suburb a skilled industrial workforce that is genuinely difficult to replicate elsewhere in the corridor.

Typical asset types here

Large-format logistics and distribution warehouses (tens of thousands of square metres), motorway-facing estate lots suited to build-to-suit development, and specialised manufacturing and defence-industrial facilities. Redbank Motorway Estate stock ranges from major single-tenant distribution centres to purpose-built manufacturing campuses.

What drives demand

• A dedicated, toll-free slip-lane onto the Ipswich Motorway, giving the estate uncommonly direct freight access to the Port of Brisbane.
• Large contiguous landholdings — the 149-hectare Redbank Motorway Estate offers scale that is increasingly rare closer to Brisbane.
• Sovereign defence manufacturing at Rheinmetall's MILVEHCOE, anchoring a skilled advanced-manufacturing workforce.
• A 150-year rail-servicing heritage that has left the suburb with well-serviced, motorway-adjacent industrial land.
• A deep existing logistics cluster — DB Schenker, TNT, Northline, Australia Post, Coles and FedEx — reinforcing the location's credibility.