Our Journey

OUR JOURNEY

PART 1 – HEART AND HISTORY

Teneriffe
Teneriffe has always been a much-loved home to Q Solicitors and after our long-awaited move into the McTaggart Woolstores on Vernon Tce, it will remain our home. There is something about this suburb (that was not officially recognised as a suburb by council until 2010!) that I love. Perhaps it is its rich history, or perhaps it is that real sense of community - either way, belonging to Teneriffe makes you feel like you are a part of something truly special.

Did you know…
One of the first landowners in the area was James Gibbon. He purchased 48 hectares of land between Newstead and New Farm and named the property Teneriffe because it reminded him of Mount Teide in Teneriffe, Canary Islands. By the 1880s the area was being settled and was served by horse drawn trams from 1885. In 1890 land near Teneriffe House was subdivided and auctioned. The 30 allotments were sold under the name Teneriffe Estate. From 1897 until December 1962 electric trams ran along Commercial Road.

The Woolstores History
The Woolstores in particular are so fascinating to me – built for the unglamorous duty of sorting, storing and baling wool, they have now been transformed into chic, and highly sought-after residential and business apartments. They were built for functionality yet their façade holds a simple beauty.

Did you know…
The first wool store in Teneriffe was built in 1909, to meet the growing demand for exported wool from Queensland. Another three stores opened by 1915, and an additional nine wool stores were built, with the last two constructed during the 1950s.

Mactaggarts
Having fallen in love with the Woolstores’ history and character, I was elated when the opportunity to secure “raw” office space within the Mactaggarts building arose. I was drawn in particular to our property at Mactaggarts partly because of its fantastic location, right on the river, but also because of the bustling vibe that already existed within this businesses residing in Mactaggarts.

Did you know…
Built in 1926, Mactaggarts Woolstore was one of several stores at Teneriffe on the Brisbane River’s Bulimba Reach. The building’s lower floors were used for storing, loading, and unloading wool while the top floor was used for displaying it. Redeveloped into residential apartments in 1995, some of the building’s original wool baling equipment is displayed throughout the apartment’s corridors as a reminder of the building’s history.

PART 2 – CREATIVITY AND COMMUNITY

The Pop-Up Gallery
When the fit-out process stalled for a few months last year, we decided to turn the place into a pop-up gallery. This would mean that inside of sitting empty, our office space, facing the riverside footpath, was busting with the colourful creations of our artist in residence Mike Banks. Mike is a Q client and we were pleased to provide the space as a gesture of good will to him, our valued client; but also as a gift to be enjoyed by the Teneriffe community as a whole. The locals received that gift with such pleasure and some even suggested we should have a permanent gallery on show. ..

ART 3 – ASSESSMENTS AND APPROVALS

My dreams of a fast and fluid fit-out were quickly dashed when I found myself in the world of DERM. Those of you with experience in dealing with office-space reno’s (particularly in period buildings) will already be aware of the various issues that come with gaining the approvals required to anything and everything. Here are just a few of my hurdles:
• To own the fit out or not….
• Work place health and safety…
• Asbestos reports…
• Modern communications and their place in historical buildings…
• DENIED. When red tape is thwarting your efforts to do something that is seemingly simple (such as put down a parquetry floor without lifting the tiles that were there) the easiest solution is usually to think outside the square, or more to the point, think outside the standard working week in order to get the job done.
• Small spaces and how it has forced us to dispense with filing cabinets and use wall mounting for filing
• Issues of electronic filing
• Issues of emergent cloud technology (legal rules surrounding it)

... more reno pics to come!!