The former Toowoomba saleyards is up for sale in the heart of the city.

Best known as the Elders or Harristown stockyards, the seven hectare site is being offered as a development opportunity.

While Toowoomba first hosted saleyards from the 1860's, the South Street yards were established in 1946 and closed in 2024.

At its height, the yards had one of the biggest stock turnovers in the nation, with around 7000 cattle sold weekly.

Toowoomba at one time was home to three separate saleyards.

Elders confirmed in April it would not reopen the Harristown saleyards, about nine months after it held its last sale in June 2024.

Weekly sale numbers at Harristown declined to about 100 head in early 2024, about a tenth of the regular yardings of 500 to 1500 during most of the 2010s.

Larger regional selling centres in the Darling Downs-Maranoa at Roma and Dalby, by comparison, posted the largest and third largest sale numbers of all yards across Australia in the 2023-24 financial year, with a weekly average of about 4800 and 3700 head respectively.

The sale of Toowoomba saleyards comes at the same time the small Victorian town of Thorpdale has offered its old yards for sale.

It's not Elders selling the yards, which are privately owned, but Ray White Toowoomba which has not suggested a sale price, leaving that up to bidders.

Ray White's Brian Doyle said the South Street saleyards were for generations the pulse of the region's agricultural trade.

"Known to many simply as the Elders Stockyards, the site was a hive of rural life where farmers, agents, and livestock converged in a tradition that shaped the economic and social landscape of the Darling Downs," he said.

"Every Toowoomba local over a certain age has a memory tied to this place.

"Truckloads of cattle, the sound of auctioneers, the smell of dust and diesel, it was a place of commerce and connection.

"This listing is a turning point in Toowoomba's ongoing story."

The property is on a substantial parcel, across 50 individual titles with a 300 metre frontage to South Street.

The existing structures include a 1385 square metre high-clearance warehouse, office and 30 on-site car parks.

"The bones are already here, solid structures, great access, and a story people already care about," Mr Doyle said.

"It's time for someone new to leave their mark on South Street."

For more information contact Mr Doyle from Ray White Toowoomba on 0434 551628.