Good afternoon everyone,

I hope everyone has had a great week, it’s been a short but productive week out on site, with some big changes coming next week. The parking on the south side of Albert Road will be permanently removed from Monday – and the footpath temporarily closed while we excavate, lay drainage and the relay the surface with bluestone pavers.

1. Station Roof Works

There is good news and bad news in regards to the station roof works, the good news is that we well ahead of schedule on the section of roof works in front of the Botanica, which means that residents who have had their cars displaced by the closed driveway will likely be able to get back in next Thursday evening. I’ll confirm this closer to the date next week. This tremendous progress is a double edged sword though, as it means that we’ll be in a position to start the works across Bowen Lane sooner than expected. At this point we’re going to close Bowen Lane at St Kilda Road on the same day, Thursday 4 May.  We’re expecting that this will be closed for a period of up to three months. The reason for this extended period is that in addition to the station roof completion works, we’ve also got gas, water and electricity connections in Bowen Lane that we need to finalise as part of this closure. I’ll keep everyone posted on the progress of these works. Those residents and businesses who access their property via Bowen Lane will need to enter and exit via Kings Way while these works are underway. (I’ll have the map updated for next week’s update)

2. Albert Road Reserve Station entrance

As I mentioned last week, we’re making some very good progress down to the base slab level of the Albert Road Reserve station entrance. Excavation and shotcreting will continue next week, along with the continued breakout of the temporary pile wall that featured in last weeks photo.

3. Conduit Connection – Anzac Tram Stop

This is the final update on the conduit connection for the Anzac Tram stop, as today CitiPower successfully connected the tram stop and traffic lights to mains power, the removal of the hoarding around the temporary generator itself has started and we’ll expect to see it removed off site Tuesday next week.

4. Albert Road North construction

The time is upon us to close both the parking (permanently) and the footpath (temporarily) on the southern side of Albert Road. From Sunday evening we’ll begin to take the parking in this area, before the footpath is closed on Monday and pedestrians are moved onto a temporary protected footpath on the road. We’ll establish pedestrian connection points into each building and business, this will take a day or so to manoeuvre and get into place.

We won’t waste any time though with the demolition works, starting on one half of the driveway at The Domain (1 Albert Road) and moving our way westward.  While we excavate the section in front of The Domain, we will have additional traffic controllers in place to control movement in and out of The Domain driveway – this is a short term arrangement while we get the site established and remove the initial rubble from site. It will mean a delay for the residents of The Domain coming in and out of the driveway, once we’ve created enough working space, we’ll widen up the entry and access in and out will no longer require any traffic controller assistance.

5. St Kilda Road median works – South

The removal of the generator at the southern end of site in front of Melbourne Grammar will allow us to continue the bike lane works through this section, later in the week we’ll likely do a run of asphalt to complete the separated bike lane through the section directly in front of Melbourne Grammar School.

6. St Kilda Road median works – North

The excavation of a trench for the drainage along this section will continue next week, not a great deal else to report in this section.

7. Station box construction

There is a hive of activity inside the station itself, with the installation of the architectural features and works underway to commission the rooms that are required to run the permanent power for the station. As the majority of our large equipment is inside the station, we’ve started planning to close up the final void in the station box. This is the void that sits on the eastern side of St Kilda Road next to the big white crane. Once this void is closed up, any materials will need to be delivered to site via our station entrances, which are progressively being connected to the main box.

8. Shrine Entrance

The Shrine entrance is one such location where we’ll have a permanent connection through to the station box. The temporary piles that separated this entrance to the concourse level are long gone, and the team are in the process of steel fixing for the base slab in the Shrine entrance.

9. Park Street to Albert Road

The temporary detour for residents of Domain Hill didn’t eventuate this week, but has only been shifted back slightly to Monday. As we said last week, 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. Speaking to the team today, there we’ll need to close off access while we’re working on the small section of asphalt directly in front of the stairs – and 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.

As reported last week – we’ve had very little luck with the location of the structural roots for the trees along this strip. The removal of the three trees in front of the Hallmark will now take place Wednesday next week, as the structural roots run directly across the footpath and the advice from the arborists is that they cannot be retained.

In much better news the remaining trees in this section before the Domain Hill driveway will be retained. (Always good to finish on a positive note)

Have a great weekend

Thanks, Rob