Good evening everyone,

Welcome to the weekly stakeholder look ahead for works happening around the Anzac Station site.

It’s a very short edition this week, as next week is an ultra-short week on site. This weekend is a shutdown weekend for the construction industry, followed by the public holiday on Monday and a rostered day off (RDO) on Tuesday.

Works will resume next Wednesday.

I hope everyone enjoys their own long weekend.

1. Station Roof Works

This week saw the arrival of the non-destructive digging (NDD), or sucker trucks as promised, the team are progressively breaking open the section of delayed pour strip and using the NDD truck to clean it out. This will continue next week.

2. Albert Road Reserve Station entrance

Similarly at the Albert Road Reserve Station entrance, it will be more of the same next week with steel tying underway in the northern end of the site. The drill for the temporary ground anchors arrived on site this week and has made short work of the task, the last of these first stage ground anchors should be done when we return on Wednesday next week. As we mentioned in a previous update, these provide the required stability as the excavation of the entrance makes its way down in stages. Once they are done, we’ll recommence excavation down to the next level.

3. Conduit Installation – Albert Road North

As I mentioned last week, it is over to CitiPower to commence their tie in works to connect the conduits into the network. We understand CitiPower will be carrying out these works on the 20^th March. I’ll provide additional information as we get it from CitiPower, but they will be notifying separately for their works.

4. Albert Road North Construction

As notified last week, the trees in the central island carpark were removed this week, this will allow the team to start to excavate the road surface in preparation for the main works to construct the permanent Albert Road North alignment. The focus for next week will be on the excavation of the drainage run for this new roadway.

Last week I mentioned that there will be some NDD works on a section of the southern footpath down towards Kings Way This has had to be pushed back to next week, most likely Thursday and Friday. As per previous advice, pedestrian access will be maintained, but we will need to occupy some of the carparks in front of Albert Square to complete the works.

5. St Kilda Road median works – South

Last week I mentioned that the works to pull up the bluestone in the kerb between the pedestrian crossing and Bromby Street would commence this week , these have had to push back and will likely commence late next week.

Looking a little further ahead, later this month we’ll need to do some overnight works to move the concrete barriers in the southbound lane between Bromby Street and Toorak Road, as well as do some new linemarking in this section. The barriers will be pushed further into the existing traffic lane to provide enough space to construct the inner traffic lane. In order to create the space required, it means that the parking spaces along this section of St Kilda Road will be removed and bikes and traffic shifted towards the kerb (hence the new line marking) 

6. St Kilda Road median works – North

Rinse and repeat last week’s update on the northern median. Drainage installation continues along with preparatory works on the surface ahead of the asphalting of the central carriageway. A notice should be coming out next week on the works to shift traffic into this central carriage way – the outer lane will remain open for bikes and local access only, but as we’ve been advising for a while now – the kerb side parking will be temporarily removed while we install the separated bike lane.

7. Station box construction

Nothing new to report from inside the station box – next week I’ll put together a bit more of an insightful update – but for now, the main task for the team is continuing their installation of platform screen doors along the length of the station platform.

8. Shrine Entrance

As I mentioned last week, we made the switch to commence the breakdown of the piles that separate the shrine entrance from the main station box. This has made good progress and next week the break out work will continue, along with the final excavation down to the base slab level.

9. Park Street to Albert Road

The new kerb alignment running from the corner of the Park Street and St Kilda Road intersection around towards Albert Road has come as far as the Hallmark service driveway, with works underway today to trench across this driveway to install new drainage. As I mentioned last week, we’ll soon start the works to complete the footpath in front of both Hallmark and Domain Hill building. The section of the footpath in front of Hallmark is expected to commence on the 20^th of March – during this time we’ll have a short pedestrian detour in place. I’ll provide some more information in next weeks update, and residents of the Hallmark and Domain Hill will soon receive a notice advising of the building access arrangements during these footpath works.

Thanks, Rob