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

Local context

Why Rocklea is strategic

Rocklea has been industrial for the better part of a century — the suburb once housed works that manufactured locomotives, and DuluxGroup still operates a major paint plant here. Sitting around 11 km south-south-west of the CBD across roughly 9.3 square kilometres, it sits at the head of the Ipswich Motorway with Beaudesert Road and Ipswich Road threading through it, and the Beenleigh rail line and Rocklea station on its eastern edge. That convergence of arterial road, rail and motorway makes it one of the genuine logistics and supply-chain hubs of Brisbane's southern belt, within a 30-minute drive of well over a million residents.

The gravitational centre of the suburb is the Brisbane Markets on Sherwood Road — the state's central fresh-produce market, opened in 1964 and now occupying around a 100-hectare site that moves enormous volumes of fruit, vegetables and flowers each year. The market underpins a dense ecosystem of cold storage, food distribution, transport and packaging operators across Rocklea and into neighbouring Acacia Ridge. For occupiers in perishables and fast-moving distribution, proximity to the markets is a tangible operational advantage that few other Brisbane suburbs can replicate.

Candour matters in Rocklea: it is one of Brisbane's most flood-affected suburbs, bordered to the west by Oxley Creek and exposed to Brisbane River backflow. Major inundation struck in 1974, 2011 (when many market buildings flooded) and again in February 2022, with further flooding during Cyclone Alfred in 2025. The market and many operators have responded by building up — elevated switchboards, multi-level structures, evacuation protocols, and tenants relocating to higher ground. Demand therefore concentrates on flood-resilient and higher-ground parcels, and on buildings designed to recover quickly. We assess every Rocklea opportunity through that lens first.

Typical asset types here

Predominantly older-generation freestanding warehouses, distribution facilities, cold stores and manufacturing plants on substantial General Industry and Heavy Impact zoned sites, often with strong motorway exposure — from low-site-cover hardstand yards to multi-tenant estates.

What drives demand

• Brisbane Markets — the southern hemisphere's busy fresh-produce hub anchoring demand for cold storage, food distribution, transport and packaging tenancies.
• Motorway and rail convergence — Ipswich Motorway frontage plus Logan/Centenary access and the Beenleigh line, near the Acacia Ridge intermodal terminal.
• Deep, established industrial land base supporting heavy-impact uses, large freestanding facilities and 24/7 operations difficult to consent in newer areas.
• Central-south population reach — roughly 1.4 million residents within a 30-minute drive, making Rocklea a natural last-mile and regional distribution base.