Contains an error…I think, see if you can spot it. It’s close to the start

Good afternoon everyone,

That was a much more pleasant week of weather – and a productive one for Anzac Station. We’ve opened the right turn from St Kilda Road into Albert Road, along with the parking spaces along the park side.

Next week we’ll reopen the Park Street right turn onto St Kilda Road – the asphalting of the intersection was done last night, now just waiting on confirmation about when the data card for the light sequence arrives and can get plugged into the system at the intersection.
Just a reminder that next Monday is an RDO – So no work on site on Monday.

1. Albert Road legacy construction

As I mentioned in the opener, the Albert Road is now open in both directions and the parking is in place. There is nothing better than freshly laid asphalt.

One last little bit of scope we have to complete is the re-asphalting of the footpath in front of Kettle Black. Next week we’ll see a few pedestrian detours later in the afternoon as we fence across the café, break out the existing asphalt and then roll immediately into the laying the lovely fresh asphalt. It’s not a big surface area, so the asphalting won’t extend overnight – and the loud breaking out of the asphalt should be done in an hour.

While this is happening we’ll put a pedestrian detour in place on the roadway around the footpath.

A quick update on the trees in front of the Hallmark Building – this area is prepped and ready for trees. I’m told that City of Port Phillip has the trees in their possession now – and will be planting them this month before the end of the planting season.

2. Albert Road Reserve Station Entrance

The station walls are progressing well and next week will see more of the precast elements being lowered into the box as well as another wall pour on the southern side.

3. Station Fitout

We’re about 70% done on the installation of the pavers on the station platform and here is also work going on to complete the detailing on the ceiling at the concourse level. We’ve also recently done a lot of work to commission the lifts that will take passengers from the tram stop down the concourse level. Speaking of the tram stop, anyone who hopped on a tram recently will have noticed a bit more real estate on the platform itself, along with the new vinyl showing the artists impression of the future station. We’ll also soon have trees on the tram platform  – It was scheduled in for last night, but Yarra Trams raised some last minute concerns so it had to be delayed. They were also schedule in to plant some trees adjacent to the northern ventilation shafts on St Kilda Road that has to be done at night when trams aren’t running.
Will advise when they pick a new date for tree planting.

4. Shrine Entrance

Nothing too exciting to report from the Shrine entrance since the arrival of the freshly poured staircase. One thing worth noting is that this week we will be closing up the final logistics void in the station roof that we previously used to lower material down. This will kick off the works to relocate a range of services that were temporarily relocated back in 2017, these will be put back onto the station box in their final alignment. The shipping containers adjacent to the Melbourne Grammar school will also start to be removed next week – they have acted as our covered walkways taking the work force back and forward from underground to the site sheds that are located on Domain Road. Similarly, the site sheds will soon be removed from Domain Road in the coming weeks.

5. St Kilda Road – Bowen Lane to Bowen Crescent

Once again, we’ve run into a series of issues in our quest to relocate services in Bowen Lane. Unfortunately this will yet again push back the reopening of Bowen Lane connection to St Kilda Road. I wont offer up a forecast of when it will open until we know a bit more about what is happening with the latest issue-  but we are working hard to get all these services into the ground and the lane reopen.

6. St Kilda Road Bowen Crescent to Toorak Road

Northbound Side (Towards City)

The drainage run is now complete and the team next week will be building the separated bike lanes through this section of the job.

Southbound side (Away from City)

We’ve finally commenced the drainage run along this section of the roadway as we’ve resolved an issue that we mentioned a few weeks back about a gas main being at a higher point than it should be. We’ve got the gas company coming next week to adjust the height, which will give us the opportunity to start get our drainage connection in. We will work from the Royce Hotel back towards St Kilda Road.

Possible Extended Works

We have asphalters booked in this afternoon to complete the asphalting behind the barriers in front of Melbourne Grammar School – I’m told there is an issue with asphalt supply – and as a result this may run a bit later than we would have liked. The good news is that the run is fairly narrow – and inside our site. The extra good news is that once the asphalting through here is complete, we’ll then be able to open the bike lane in this section of road and shift cars into the new asphalted lane. This shift will allow tree planting and turf installation to occur on the inner median in front of the school. It also means the traffic barriers and temporary fencing along the footpath in front of Melbourne Grammar can be removed. Just another welcome example of site fencing disappearing from the area.

Have a great weekend

Thanks, Rob and Remy