Development - Queensland
LITTLE ITALY RISES: FROM ACCIDENTAL CONCRETER TO $1.5BN PRECINCT PLAY
Author: Clare Burnett
The Urban Developer
Italian storytelling skills are legendary, and when the source material is as good as the origin story of Panettiere Property Group’s Little Italy project, the tale writes itself.
And while the $1.5-billion mixed-use Brisbane precinct broke ground earlier this year, the journey to the Newstead megaproject was a long one, Panettiere Developments director Max Panettiere said at The Urban Developer’s Brisbane Residential Developer Summit last month. “I remember going to Park Road to La Dolce Vita, where all the Italians used to hang out and we’d watch Italy playing in the World Cup,” Panettiere said.
“But something didn’t sit right. We were sitting under a replica of the Eiffel Tower, and I said to myself, I really need to do something about this. We need our own Italian precinct.” Determined to change that, Panettiere, alongside his
brothers Joe and Michael, acquired 13 sites around Longland Street in 2017 amounting to 7500sqm.
The project was approved for 1000 apartments across three towers with a ground-floor retail precinct centred around a cobbled piazza with 19 speciality shops — a genuine taste of la dolce vita. But in true Aussie fashion enjoying the simple things in life can only come after a bit of hard yakka. It’s all about the journey Despite starting out as a property lawyer, Panettiere found the glitz of sales and marketing more appealing initially. After acquiring a Chermside site for 25 townhouses, he then teamed up with his brothers to develop several hundred townhouses on Brighton swampland. Panettiere’s next venture, however, took an unexpected turn. After selling a finance company to Macquarie Bank the day before the GFC struck in 2007, Panettiere found himself holding $4 million worth of repossessed concrete pumps. “So I repossessed the pumps, and I said to myself, shit, what am I going to do with these things?”
Panettiere Developments director Max Panettiere at The Urban Developer's Brisbane Residential Developer Summit.
50 – June / July 2026
Powered by FlippingBook