Queen Street Mall Brisbane

Queen Street Mall Granite Paving supplied by J.H. Wagner & Sons. 

The redevelopment of the Queen Street Mall in Brisbane during 1999 was a significant opportunity for J.H. Wagner & Sons to be recognised for the supply of granite paving for large scale commercial projects, having been most widely known up until this time for our success in the supply of our Helidon Sandstone both within Australia and overseas.   Our purchase of the Black Granite Pty Ltd plant, equipment and stock from Western Australia in 1997 and a very large factory expansion the following year at Toowoomba had given JHW the ability to process a much greater volume of sandstone and granite, exfoliate bulk slab material and manufacture granite braille tiles.

Brisbane City Council had identified several objectives for the redevelopment of the Queen Street Mall, including integration of all future streetscape works to provide durable pavement surfaces, compliance with updated disability services recommendations for public access by persons with visual or physical disability, an immediate need to reduce public risk from the uneven surface of the existing brick paving and improved pedestrian and vehicle movement within the Mall area. 

After extensive product research, granite paving was chosen as the most appropriate material to meet the initial objectives.  The final selection of granite colour was Australian Midnight Rose granite from the Mount Isa region in Queensland for the bulk paving and Australian Adelaide Black granite for feature paving inlays and braille tiles.  Five paving sizes in 50mm thickness plus thinner material for manhole covers and building transition areas were supplied to complete a total area of 12,500 square metres.

Australian Granites of Townsville was the quarry lessee of Midnight Rose granite and with other manufacturers provided significant competition within the tendering process.  Following JHW's success winning the project supply, arrangements were entered into with Australian Granites to provide raw quarried block of the Midnight Rose granite, unfortunately existing financial difficulties of Australian Granites soon resulted in this company having a receiver appointed and supply of block material was much slower than anticipated.  With a project time line already the shortest in Australian building history for such a large quantity of granite pavers this hurdle was not easy to solve but would not see the JHW team beaten.  Adapting to full twenty-four hour factory processing and providing opportunity for expansion of our processing staff guaranteed each supply deadline was met on time and perhaps as expected, the only delay turned out to be an extended failure in the Council payment system.

To supply granite paving for the Queen Street Mall, J.H. Wagner & Sons performed all slab cutting, surface exfoliation, paver cutting, packing and identification, granite braille hazard tile with bright-etched finish, granite braille directional tile manufacture with bright-etched finish and site delivery of all paving materials.

Brisbane's Queen Street Mall is visited daily by thousands of people and we enjoy the fact that in doing so they are walking all over granite paving from J.H. Wagner & Sons.