[1] The building has been in a state of significant disrepair and neglect for several years, covered in graffiti and broken panelling, and in September 2018 was destroyed by a fire.
The Brisbane architectural firm John Hall & Son executed the design and the builders were Wooley & Whyte, who won the contract with a tender price of £4,820.
In the second half of the 1880s, the East Brisbane-Woolloongabba-Buranda-Stones Corner-Coorparoo areas experienced a population and housing boom, largely associated with the expansion of Brisbane's railway and tramway systems.
The new Broadway Hotel, located prominently to take advantage of the increased traffic flow between Brisbane and the eastern suburbs, was an imposing structure designed to attract attention, and rapidly became a well-known local landmark.
When opened in 1890, the attendant advertising in The Southern World of 22 October emphasised the proximity of the new hotel to the Woolloongabba Fiveways, and that country visitors would be well catered for with superior accommodation.
In 1917 he sold the property to the Castlemaine Brewery of Quinlan Gray & Co. From 1949 until the early 1980s the licensees were Ron and Ivy Hogarth.
[2] The Broadway Hotel is a substantial three storeyed brick building, occupying a prominent corner site with principal facades on Logan Road and Balaclava Street, Woolloongabba.
[1] The building is an elaborate example of late Victorian architecture in Brisbane, influenced by the eclecticism of the "Queen Anne" movement, popularised by English architect, Richard Norman Shaw in the 1880s.
It was designed in the tradition of substantial English corner pubs, gaining patronage by attracting the attention of passing trade, using elaborate architectural forms and detailing as advertisement for the business.
[1] The rolled zinc mansard roof is partially concealed by a series of Dutch gables, correlating to the bays of windows on the body of the building.
This is flanked by two subsidiary bays with gables surmounted by smaller segmental pediments on moulded pilasters at the second floor level and classically derived aedicule window openings below.
A large second floor room on the principal corner of the building, accessing the small balcony in the tower, features an ebonised and marbleized timber fireplace, with iron register grate intact.
This structure is of substantial rendered brick construction, with stringcourses and detailing around the arches, and a corrugated iron hipped roof.
[1] In the south corner of the site is a small one storeyed reinforced concrete building, with two entrances of simple timber doors with openings above.
The Broadway Hotel is important in demonstrating the evolution and pattern of Queensland's history, providing evidence of: 1. the pattern of 1880s boom era confidence which lead to a massive building boom throughout Queensland, and most pronouncedly in Brisbane; 2. the evolution of the Woolloongabba-East Brisbane area in response to the growth of the tramway system;[1] The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places.
The Broadway Hotel is a well composed building which makes a strong contribution to the Woolloongabba townscape and to the streetscape along that part of Logan Road.