Good morning all,
Apologies that this update didn’t go out on Friday, todays update is coming to you on an RDO, followed by Anzac Day tomorrow, so another short week this week.
The only change this week will be the start of works on the section of footpath in front of Domain Hill Apartments, between Albert Road and Park Street (more on this below) The rest of the site will be generally business-as-usual.
- Station Roof Works
The works in front of Botanica’s driveway got off to a good start, with the steel now tied and the waterproofing commencing. We saw the section of the roof partially backfilled on Saturday, which will continue this week. This is great news for the residents of Botanica looking forward to returning their cars to the basement carpark. Further along this section of the roof, in front of 390 St Kilda Road, NDD will continue for a short while on the exposed section of roof, before we tie in the connection points and pour concrete for this section.
- Albert Road Reserve Station entrance
A big milestone last week at the Albert Road Reserve Station entrance with the team breaking down the very first section of temporary pile wall that separates the Albert Road Reserve station entrance from the concourse level under St Kilda Road. This wall will progressively be broken down as we excavate our way down to the base level of the station entrance.
I’ve included a photo of the newly opened section – If you poked your head through this gap you’d get a look through to the escalators, stairs and lift that lead up to the tram platform (as well as stern lecture from the safety team for poking your head through)
Next week we’ll continue our excavation and progressive demolition of the temporary pile wall. If you look closely at the photo of piles that were removed, you’ll notice a clean cut on the piles. Wherever possible we use a wire saw to remove these piles – as it greatly reduces the noise from jackhammering.
- Conduit Connection – Anzac Tram Stop
On Thursday we’ll switch off the generator adjacent to Melbourne Grammar, then it’s over to CitiPower to haul the final cables and make the connection to the tram stop. We understand that Citipower plan to haul cables overnight on Thursday, through to Friday morning. While they’re doing this work, we’ll have traffic controllers on the pedestrian crossing, as the pedestrian lights will be out of action until the main power connection is in place.
The actual physical generator will be removed next week.
- Albert Road North Construction
Albert Road North will still remain in drainage construction mode for a while as the team work their way up the site. The team are prepping for the start of works on the Albert Road southern footpath. This will also come with the removal of the parking on this southern side.
- St Kilda Road median works – South
Not much new to report in the southern median with kerbing and in-ground service laying will be underway, while on the chiller plants, the first of the steel was installed last week, and will continue this week before pre-cast concrete arrives in May. The team have been working on the separated bike lane in front of Melbourne Grammar, this is progressing well with the bluestone pitchers removed and backfilled, we’ll see some asphalt laid following the removal of the generator, with the concrete bike separators also installed.
- St Kilda Road median works – North
Traffic is now running in the centre lane of St Kilda Road between Park Street and Dorcas Street. Last week our excavator arrived on site, it will commence the excavation of a trench for the drainage along this section on Wednesday this week.
- Station box construction
The final concrete pours for the track slab were successfully completed last week, underground the team are installing some of the architectural finishes inside the station – which is day by day starting to resemble the finished product. The big focus for the team is to get the station energised on mains power for the actual trains – this will allow the start of test trains through the tunnels later this year.
- Shrine Entrance
The steel fixing is now commencing for the base slab in the Shrine entrance, this will continue this week and will be closely followed by a concrete pour on this slab – likely in May.
- Park Street to Albert Road
As mentioned above, we’ll open up a new section of footpath works next week in front of Domain Hill Apartments. This will meant that we’ll have a temporary pedestrian access detour to and from the stairs at the front of Domain Hill Apartments, access will be from the north as we excavate the footpath surface. There may be some delays coming in and out the stairs when we are working on the small section of asphalt directly in front of the stairs – It may be easier to take the elevator down to the car park and entering and exiting the building via the garage door while these works are underway.
We’ll also start the next section of non-destructive digging (NDD) assessment of the root location for the trees along the footpath. As I’ve said in previous updates – the trees along this section have been marked for removal in the approved plans – however we first pull up the asphalt and use non-destructive-digging (NDD) trucks to investigate whether we can in fact retain these trees.
I’m sad to report that we’ve so far had very little luck with the location of the structural roots for the trees along this strip. This means that this week we’ll need to remove three of the trees in front of the Hallmark, as the structural roots run directly across the footpath and the advice from the arborists is that they cannot be retained. We’ll keep the process going and attempt to retain any trees that we can. Wherever a tree is removed, it will be replaced with a tree in a similar location.
Thanks, Rob
The Botanica 