Good afternoon everyone,

Welcome to our look ahead for works happening out in the Domain Precinct next week. Just a reminder that next Monday is the Kings Birthday long weekend, followed by an RDO the next day, so a fairly short look ahead for next week!

Just a note for anyone who witnessed some of the drama on St Kilda Road on Wednesday morning, when a large truck carrying another large truck seemingly took a wrong turn onto St Kilda Road city-bound and ended up stuck at the tram wires across Park Street. Rest assured that this wasn’t a project vehicle, we are very much aware where the tram wires are on St Kilda Road, having gone to significant effort to install them last year.

We understand that with some assistance, the truck was removed at around 1am the following morning.

1. Utility Works  – Bowen Lane to Bowen Crescent

The completion of works to connect the last section of the station wall to the station roof, the focus will switch to the utility works happening through the area.

We’ll see an NDD truck parked up on the corner of Bowen Lane and St Kilda Road next week identifying the existing services in this location ahead of excavation.

There will also be a crane parked up in the area to lower in the precast concrete sections for the maintenance access hatch into the station.

2. Albert Road Reserve Station entrance

The works on the entrance are continuing at good pace. We’ve completed the last of the excavation for this entrance – which also means that we’ve completed all bulk excavation for Anzac Station, a significant milestone in itself. Next week the focus will remain on steel fixing at the base of the entrance.

3. Albert Road North construction

The paving works have almost made their way entirely down to Kings Way, we’d expect by Tuesday that we’ll have the footpath reopen in its entirety, with the temporary fencing moved to the outer edge of the paving. This will be in time for the our major change on Albert Road, which will see the closure of the westbound lane of traffic out to Kings Way on Wednesday night (This westbound lane is the site of the future landscaping and gardens in the legacy design).

This means that on Thursday morning, Albert Road will become a one-way road from Kings Way through to St Kilda Road (with access retained to the Ramsay Clinic and The Domain)

It also means that we’ll start work at the intersection of Kings Way and Albert Road as we continue the build of westbound lane of Albert Road on its new alignment (In the final design, traffic will exit Albert Road just to the left of the remaining palm tree)

4. St Kilda Road median works – South

Despite the short week, there is a bit of activity down at the southern end of site next week. We’ll be doing some overnight work on St Kilda Road southbound, which means it will be closed from 8pm Thursday night to 5am Friday morning, and then again from 8pm Friday night to 5am Saturday morning. In this time we’ll be trenching a new VicRoads service connection across the road at the Toorak Road intersection, while also laying some temporary asphalt in the kerb between the pedestrian lights and Toorak Road and shifting the traffic barriers here. This will also see the final three parks as part of the Stage 1 parking removal implemented through this section.

Over at the chiller plant locations, we’ll be delivering the last of the internal plant for the chiller structure on Friday next week, which will be followed by the internal fitout of the structures after that.

5. St Kilda Road median works – North

Moving down to the works between Park Street an Dorcas Street, anyone who has walked past this area will have seen that the team have made short work of excavating the area for the final set of works. This has allowed the start of the installation of drainage, sewerage and stormwater connections on the corner – while next week we’ll continue the final kerb layout that began this week. The level of the road in this area changes slightly, which is why the area has been excavated to the extent that you see out there today.

Meanwhile, over on the East side of St Kilda Road, we’ll begin the final connections of the drainage and irrigation in the bike lane, adjacent to the temporarily closed pedestrian crossing

6. Station box construction

Nothing new to report downstairs for next week.

7. Shrine Entrance

Next week the team will hit another milestone over at the Shrine entrance with the last of the internal walls to be poured. The relocated site hoarding is also coming together, the team was out on site today doing measurements for the artwork installation for both the future wooden hoarding through the area, and the short section of covered walkway that will extend over the existing asphalt path.

8. Park Street to Albert Road

This week the team have all but completed the new paving on the Hallmark service driveway, once cure this will be ready to reopen on Wednesday next week when the teams return to site.

If you’ve walked along the newly completed path you might have noticed some water pooling in a section of the footpath. It hasn’t gone unnoticed at our end too, and after some investigations it appears that the levels in this area are slightly off. Unfortunately this means that we’ll need to get back into this section and relay some of the paving. It is unfortunate, but this is the legacy design and its important that it is built to a high standard. We’ll likely come back the week after next to complete the rectification works here

The section of future landscaping in front of Domain Hill is still undergoing some works and the this week we’ve been working on conduit installs for both CitiPower and VicRoads utilities connections. Next week we will likely remove the now disconnected light post on the corner, which will be followed shortly thereafter by the installation of two new poles further towards St Kilda Road. One for a future crossing button and the other for the replacement light pole for this section.

Late next week, early the following week will also see a section of bike separator median installed at the top of Albert Road near the future crossing point.

We hope everyone has a wonderful long weekend

Thanks, Rob and Remy