Shaping Brisbane’s Future

Christine Rudolph Licensed Real Estate Agent at Ray White sat down with Bluebird’s Co-Founder Claire O’Rourke to talk about taking risks as an entrepreneurial woman in business and her belief in the future of Brisbane.

Claire O'Rourke is Co-Founder & Partner of Bluebird, a development management and property advisory company, which is based in Brisbane.

In 2021, Claire and her business partner, Riye, were nominated as the Top 20 under 40 Business Entrepreneurs in QLD.

Prior to starting Bluebird in 2018, Claire spent 15 years working as a Development Manager for some of the world’s largest property developers, including Lendlease, Mirvac and Barratt London. She delivered residential and mixed-use projects in Brisbane, Perth, and London, which ranged in scale from $20m to $700m.

Claire holds tertiary qualifications in property and construction, including a Bachelor of Applied Science (Property Economics), Bachelor of Urban Development (Construction Management) and Post Graduate Certificate (Property Economics).

Christine: Claire, you have had an incredible background working for some of Australia's most respected property developers. Tell us about the transformational projects you have been involved with during the past decade.

Claire: My business partner, Riye Arai-Coupe, and I met at Mirvac on the same day back in 2010.  During those years we both worked on city shaping projects like Newstead Waterfront and Tennyson Reach. Riye continued at Mirvac for nine years delivering the 10ha gasworks precinct, including Pier, Park and Unison. I did some time in Perth and London and came back to Brisbane and worked with Lendlease on the Brisbane Showgrounds & King Street redevelopment.

Christine: What was it at the top of your game in the security of the corporate world which made you take the huge risk of opening your own business?

Claire: After collectively spending 30 years in the corporate world, we were both ready for change and new challenges. We’re strong believers that you only have one life and it’s not a dress rehearsal – so you must follow your heart and your passion.  

Riye and I saw a gap in the development consultancy space and an opportunity to offer a service that was different from the traditional project management firms.  We knew that we could use our corporate experience and apply it on a different scale - working for developers and landowners that don’t have the resources or expertise to deliver their projects.  

Christine: Construction has been traditionally a male dominated business. Have you found this a challenge in your career and how have you tried to empower more women to choose a future in construction?

Claire: I can recall one time when a client was concerned that we wouldn’t be able to manage the builder properly because we were female. But 95% of the time, both our clients and the builders are great to deal with.

At Bluebird, 8 out of 9 staff are female. While this probably makes us one of the least diverse organisations out there (and we are looking to hire more men) - we are proud that we can bring diversity to our projects. Most of our clients and project teams are men, so the fact we can bring the female workforce, is one of our strengths. As females, we bring a collaborative edge and more empathetic approach to construction. We believe in shared success and working together to achieve our goals.

Bluebird is also actively supporting more women to get into the industry. We are participating in the PCA’s 500 Women in Property and the UDIA’s Mentoring Program. We also regularly have work experience students in our team. We have a motto that “you can’t be what you can’t see”. That’s why we want to show young women that they can have successful careers in property and construction.  

Christine: I remember we came together at the beginning of COVID when you had only just started your business. Can you tell us about your incredible growth you have experienced in the past two years which has included you having twins?

Claire: Bluebird was only 18 months old when COVID hit, and it had a big impact on our operations. We were fortunate to have some clients who held their nerve and kept building, but the opportunity for new projects was minimal as the industry sat on their hands waiting to see what the impact would be. I also had 4-month-old twins and I was getting up 8 times per night. We didn’t have a team at that point, so Riye and I were responsible for everything. It was a tough period.

However, COVID gave us time to have a laser focus on our business. We rebranded, launched a new website, created targeted marketing campaigns, and hustled hard. By August 2020, our workbook began to rapidly fill up again and we quickly grew our team. Then in 2021, things really exploded – we tripled our annual turnover and became a team of 9 people. We also finished off last year by being recognised in the Top 20 under 40 Business Entrepreneurs for QLD.

Christine: Being a working Mum is incredibly admirable and so is your business partner, Riye. How do you manage to juggle so many responsibilities and stay calm and organised?

Claire: As with anyone’s career or business, the juggle between work and your personal life is always something to manage, whether that’s family, parenting, social life, study, exercise or just downtime. It rarely all falls into a nice balance for anyone - but both Riye and I try to work hard when we are ‘at work’ and when we’re not – we try to be present and engaged with our family and friends.

In terms of staying calm and organised, we are very lucky that we have each other and an incredible team, who take on a lot of the day-to-day project responsibilities. This has allowed Riye and I to work “on the business” rather than in it. We also have two business coaches, and we’ve recently hired an Executive Assistant to help with managing our lives, as well as the administrative side of Bluebird.

Christine: What are some of your biggest projects being overseen by Bluebird?

Claire: The largest project we have been involved in over the last couple of years is the Queen’s Wharf Brisbane development. We have worked under Destination Brisbane Consortium and Far East Consortium in the launches of their two residential towers – Queen’s Wharf Residences, which was 64 storeys and more recently Queen’s Wharf Tower, standing tall at 74 storeys.

Christine: You are in the enviable position of having a long-term vision of what's ahead for Brisbane. How will the city look say in the 10 years’ time in readiness for the Olympics.

Claire: Brisbane is currently undergoing an incredible transformation. There are a huge number of city-shaping and infrastructure projects underway that will make us a world-class destination. We can’t wait to see Queen’s Wharf Brisbane start opening, along with the new Cross River Rail stations, and Victoria Park becoming an iconic parkland. Other projects that are underway include the $2.3bn Eagle Street Pier and Waterfront Place redevelopment, the four new Green Bridges, Northshore Olympic Village development, Brisbane Live and there are so many more projects. Brisbane is going to be a vastly different and far more mature city in ten years’ time.

Christine: Construction currently has the challenges of shortages of materials, qualified staff and rising costs. How do you overcome these challenges with clients?

Claire: 2022 produced an extraordinary set of circumstances for the construction industry, which caught many of us by surprise.  Those builders that have a large amount of working capital will be able to ride the wave of unprofitability and those that don’t will, unfortunately, fall over.

But these challenges are known to us now, and the industry is starting to recalibrate its behaviour to accommodate the environment we’re in.

At Bluebird, we are adopting a more collaborative approach with the Contractor rather than transferring all the risk to them when they limited capacity to control it. We are starting to see rise and fall mechanisms in our contracts, as well as provisions for delay & cost increases caused by supply chain disruptions.

If we do go to tender, we usually pick the median tender price now, rather than the cheapest. But we are also encouraging clients to move away from the hard-dollar competitive tenders and partner with their builder much earlier in the design process.  Through an ECI agreement, we work together with the preferred builder upfront to collaboratively design, price and value manage the project, so it meets the budget. This embeds the builder’s smarts and their commitment to the job.

While the current market is challenging, with the right team and processes, you can still successfully deliver your projects. 

Christine: While our southern states have started to slow down with the property boom, Brisbane defies the trend. Do you see this continuing?

Claire: I do see this trend continuing because we are still seeing record numbers of people moving up to Brisbane. Our property prices are still comparatively cheap to Sydney and Melbourne. Interest rates are low, which continues to fuel demand. We have record low vacancy rates, which will drive rental growth and bring investors back in full force. Our biggest issue right now, is lack of supply to meet this demand and more diverse housing options. Our industry has a big job ahead of it over the next ten years and Bluebird is looking forward to playing a big part in shaping Brisbane’s transformation into a world-class city.

Take a look at Christine Rudolph’s Prestige Market Review for 2022 here!