After four years the former Indooroopilly bowls club is set to become a health and fitness precinct
The echoes of young voices will soon be heard at a former Brisbane bowls club that has sat empty for years.
The property at 101 Clarence Road in Indooroopilly was once home to the local bowls club but had been vacant for four years following its closure.
It was recently bought by two local families and will be turned into a health and fitness precinct with several businesses set to open, including a youth fitness centre, yoga studio and cafe.
The sale of the 4507-square-metre site for $1.3 million was negotiated by Adam Willmore of Knight Frank, who was appointed by liquidators.
Mr Willmore said he had received more than 100 inquiries from buyers over the years, with wide-ranging uses for the site, but its unique ownership structure meant the offers never went very far.
“It has been a long and difficult process to get to this point where the property will be sold,” Mr Willmore said.
“The site is essentially one strata unit that is part of the body corporate that also governs the 134 residential apartments on the Clarence Road property.
“As such, any incoming buyer needed to obtain body corporate approvals if they wanted to operate anything other than a bowls club.”
To further complicate matters, Mr Willmore said the bowling greens were also zoned sports and recreation, while sitting above basement car parking, so there was no development potential on the site.
“We previously had it under contract a number of times to buyers wanting to purchase it for other uses, including childcare, but the body corporate did not support these buyers’ use for the property,” he said.
Mr Wilmot said the suburb had been part of the reason why the new owners were keen to secure the holding.
“This Indooroopilly site was perfectly suited to the buyer because it offered the ability to use both indoor and outdoor areas – and was located close to amenity in a highly populated area.”
To be called Indooroopilly Greens, the fit out is currently under way on the greens and more than 800 square metres of internal space.
The anchor tenant, Fitter Futures, will relocate from nearby Chelmer to operate its unique functional movement training facility, specialising in kids and teens, but expanding to include a comprehensive offering for adults.
Fitter Futures Founder Sam Mathers had been looking for a new rental location for a year before finding the Indooroopilly site.
“It had to tick a lot of boxes – it had to be in Brisbane’s western suburbs, on the train line and easy to access via public transport, close to lots of schools, have lots of parking available and be visible. I couldn’t have found a better site,” she said.
One of the main motivations to relocate was to create a state-of-the-art training facility that could cater to families.
“When it opens it will be amazing – there won’t be another training facility like it in Brisbane, especially having such a large outdoor and indoor space,” she said.
