🧱 Wool Stores & River

Teneriffe

Teneriffe is Brisbane's warehouse suburb — heavy brick wool stores from the shipping era, converted to apartments, with the river running past the front door.

✍️ By Frank Adam Burns 📅 Updated 2026📍 Brisbane, QLD

Teneriffe sits between New Farm and the river on the northern bank, and it is the most architecturally distinctive of Brisbane's inner suburbs — not for houses, but for warehouses.

The Wool Stores

Brisbane was a wool-shipping port, and Teneriffe is where the wool was stored before it went onto ships. The result is a row of enormous brick warehouses along the riverfront, built in the early twentieth century with the heavy structure that storing bales required.

From the 1990s onwards they were converted to apartments rather than demolished, and the conversions kept the brick, the timber beams, the loading bays and in many cases the original company names still painted on the walls.

You can read the suburb's whole industrial history off the building facades as you walk, which is the reason to come here.

The Riverwalk and the River

The Riverwalk — the floating boardwalk on the river itself — begins near here and runs to the CBD in about forty minutes, flat and sealed with no steps. It is one of the best free walks in Brisbane.

The riverfront through Teneriffe is public the whole way, with a promenade, small parks and views across to Bulimba and Hawthorne.

Teneriffe Ferry Terminal and the cross-river service to Bulimba both operate here at fifty cents.

Eating and Drinking

Florence Street and the Commercial Road end carry cafes, small bars and restaurants tucked into the warehouse ground floors. It is a low-key scene rather than a strip — you find places rather than walk past them.

New Farm's Brunswick Street cafes are a few minutes' walk away, and the two suburbs are used interchangeably by residents.

Teneriffe or New Farm?

They adjoin and run together, and most visitors treat them as one area. The practical difference is that Teneriffe is closer to the river and the warehouses; New Farm has the big park, the Powerhouse and the Saturday market.

Staying in either puts you within walking distance of both.

Staying Here

Good for: the river, the architecture, the Riverwalk, and a quiet residential base that is still close in.

Less good for: nightlife and shopping, both of which are limited. It is a place to live rather than a place to go out.

Getting There

CityCat to Teneriffe or the cross-river ferry to Bulimba, both fifty cents. Buses run along Commercial Road.

On foot, the Riverwalk reaches the CBD in about forty minutes and Howard Smith Wharves in around twenty-five. New Farm Park is a few minutes away.

Common Questions

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