In 1885 James Hunter, boot manufacturer and property developer, took a 25-year lease from William Cribb on several adjoining allotments on the corner of George and Elizabeth Streets.

He planned to erect, in two stages, a large L-shaped complex fronting George and Elizabeth Streets with accommodation for shops and offices.

The first stage of the "Hunters Building" project, with frontages to George and Elizabeth Streets, was completed in 1886 for an estimated cost of £10,000.

Financial problems prevented Hunter proceeding with the second stage – a corner section linking the George and Elizabeth Street buildings.

In 1887 Hunter sub-let part of his lease to Denis O'Connor who built the Treasury Hotel on the corner site.

[1] In the early 1920s, the George Street land was subdivided again and by the end of the decade various parts of the site were held on separate titles.

[1] The Elizabeth Street buildings remained under one title (owned by the Caledonian Society) until 1949 when the present St Francis House was bought by the Order of Capuchin Franciscan Fathers.

This artistic focus was accompanied by commercial and light industrial use of the Elizabeth Street buildings, during which period the interiors were altered substantially.

[1] St Francis House and Symons Building, with frontages to Elizabeth Street, were a continuation of Treasury Chambers.

The facade is decorated with moulded plaster details including small pilasters with acanthus leaf capitals, rosettes, keystones, brackets, cornice and balustraded parapet.

The buildings, erected in the mid-1880s as a commercial investment, is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history, being material evidence of the optimism generated by the economic prosperity of the era.

Importantly, the place demonstrates the principal characteristics of an 1880s prestige office building in Queensland, and the commercial work of acclaimed Brisbane architect Richard Gailey.