Melbourne recorded 224 cranes, a new high that passes its previous peak of 222 in Q1 2019. Residential cranes rose by 24 to 108, lifting their share of the city's total from 41 to 48 per cent. The North saw the largest change, with residential cranes more than doubling from 11 to 23 across projects in Bellfield, Coburg, Preston and Heidelberg, several of them affordable or public housing. The South added nine residential cranes to reach 19, while build-to-rent is visible in Richmond, where the Salta development has four cranes.
Across South East Queensland, crane numbers rose from 153 to 178, with residential projects accounting for 77 per cent of the region's total. The Gold Coast reached a record 82 cranes, 72 of them on residential projects, and continues to hold more cranes than Brisbane. New activity is spread along the coastal strip from Coolangatta and Kirra through Palm Beach, Burleigh Heads and Surfers Paradise. Brisbane's residential cranes rose from 43 to 54, with inner Brisbane accounting for most of the gain as projects commenced in Kangaroo Point, South Brisbane, Newstead and Windsor. The Sunshine Coast doubled its count to 16 cranes.
Adelaide's residential cranes rose from 13 to 18, now 64 per cent of the city's total, while Perth increased from 21 to 27 and Canberra from 10 to 14. Student accommodation is a recurring feature of new additions, including UniLodge on Waymouth and Trinity in Adelaide, Perth City Link and Nedlands in Perth, Walcott Street in St Lucia, and Larkins Hall at Monash University.
Civil cranes recorded the largest fall of any sector, down from 79 to 50. This decline was almost entirely in Melbourne as North East Link works have progressed, more of the activity has moved to mobile cranes, which fall outside the fixed crane count. The change reflects the stage of these projects more than a pullback in infrastructure spending. North East Link and the Suburban Rail Loop still account for 42 cranes.
Data centre cranes rose from 36 to 50, an increase of 38.9 per cent, and now match civil as a share of national activity. Melbourne drove most of this growth, with its count rising from 20 to 31. In the West, data centre and industrial projects account for 20 of the region's 39 cranes. These include LA1 in Laverton with six cranes, STACK Infrastructure's MEL02 in Truganina with five, Amazon's AWS facility in Cobblebank with four, and CDC's Brooklyn campus. The North went from no data centre cranes to 10, almost all at NEXTDC's M2 expansion and AirTrunk's MEL2 in Tullamarine. In Sydney, activity is concentrated in the western corridor at Marsden Park, CDC Eastern Creek and Wetherill Park. The Sunshine Coast also recorded its first data centre cranes at NEXTDC SC2 in Maroochydore.
Commercial cranes were steady at 37 nationally. Canberra was an exception, lifting from six to 10 commercial cranes with the National Security Office Precinct in Barton and the Canberra Theatre redevelopment. At the other end of the scale, Darwin is down to a single crane following the completion of hotel and data centre projects.
