A number of people have expressed concern about planting in the nature strip after 7 years of heavy compacting the soil. They have always said …Don’t worry we will install ‘strata vaults’
These are ‘strata vaults’ being installed near the Domain
Massive and obviously will mean the soil won’t be super compacted. I think we will end up with tree and natives grassy stuff, A bit like this.
More reading is here https://citygreen.com/category/products/stratavault/
You can see it all in 3 minutes
CYP got everything opened as promised but I thought that it looked a bit tight…so I deiced to give it a try. And the ‘perfect’ case, someone was coming out. I had to back into St Kilda Rd. Too tight and CYP have said they’ll try to fix it tomorrow.
and yes my dashcam needs the clock changed for daylight saving
…and I only downloaded the low resolution version.
If you want to see what bis happening during the day / arvo, you can look here
Good afternoon,
Can you believe this lookahead includes the start of November! Ten months down and two to go for 2023.
There will be no RDO on Monday so expect people on site. It will, however, be a shorter week as the site is shutting down for the weekend for the Melbourne Cup public holiday. Works will stop from Friday afternoon, 3 November and recommence in the morning of Thursday 9 November. We will be working away next week, trying to get as much done before the break.
We don’t have a section for Park Street anymore since works largely wrapped up there. The east/ west pedestrian crossing from Park Street to the gardens will be closed for a few days next week while we connect the watermain. On Thursday 2 November, the left turn from St Kilda Road to Park Street will be closed while we remove a redundant pole and deliver the cladding for the garden beds. Hallmark residents will be able to access their driveway from Park Street during this time.
Decommissioning of the site sheds will continue in the lead up to the shut down weekend. On Thursday 2 November there will be a westbound closure of Albert Road while we install the new light poles in the reserve. This should only take a few hours in the middle of the day. Further towards Kings Way, the WUSD garden works will continue with the pouring of more retaining walls, installation of stones and pavements. The team are busily planning for the Kings Way / Albert Road intersection works that will commence on 12 November. Keep an eye out for information on that as we get closer to the date.
351 m3 of concrete was poured last Friday. Waterproofing soon followed, that should be wrapped next week and you’ll start to see the backfilling.
Steel tying will continue in the station entrance until 1am. We’re expecting the second pour for the roof (which is about half the size of the first) to be poured in mid-November.
Here is an underside view of the scaffolding for the roof.
In the station, along with plastering and furniture, service installation continues to test and commissions different sections.
On top of the station where the old logistics void was, the watermain is nearly complete with just the final connection to go (hence the pedestrian closure at Park). Telstra has started out on site today with installation of their assets to kick off after the shut down weekend.
This week, the first of the structural steel pieces (in a very familiar shade of green) for the smaller canopy for the Shrine entrance was installed. Inside the entrance, the crew have been installing precast concrete architectural elements. We are still working until 1am on this side of the road.
In Bowen Lane we have started to dig out the strata vault and are about halfway through the new sewer connection, we are just waiting for some paperwork from South East Water. You may have noticed the kerbs have started to go in at Bowen Lane as well.
We have also started working on the new footpath out the front of 390 St Kilda Road. This pedestrian arrangement will be in place until mid-November.
We will be installing the LV conduit directly under the Botanica’s driveway on Tuesday and Wednesday next week, this will see a closure from 8am to 4pm both days.
There will be quite a bit of activity in Bowen Crescent next week. We will adjust some of our barriers here to give us some space to service prove, using non-destructive digging trucks. We will also demolish the temporary traffic island in the Bowen Cres / St Kilda Road intersection. By removing this island, we will be able to keep Bowen Crescent open for longer while we build the new kerbs and pedestrian crossing here. There will be a stop / start traffic controller on Bowen Crescent while we do these works and some minor delays.
Northbound Side (Towards City)
We know it’s been a bit tricky to navigate the new line marking, our traffic team is reviewing what can be done through this section ahead of the final legacy roadway and line marking works in late November.
Southbound side (Away from City)
Works in the section between Bromby and Toorak road will continue until the end of November. We’ve encountered significant delays here, much like at Bowen Lane. Once you open St Kilda Road, no matter how much planning, you never really know what you’re going to find. Works remaining include the stormwater installation, backfilling, separated bike lane install and temporary road works (final wearing course will be sometime in December). We will open the pedestrian crossing at the southern end of the Toorak Road Tram stop next week.
Enjoy the weekend,
Rob and Remy
ST KILDA ROAD DRIVEWAY – DAYTIME CLOSURE
Please be advised that on Tuesday 31 October and Wednesday 1 November 2023 there will be no vehicle egress or ingress to the Botanica lower-level carpark between 8.00am and 4.00pm each day.
Works to install the final utilities and new kerbs will prevent access to and from St Kilda Road into the lower-level carpark. This will be the second last time the driveway needs to close for Metro Tunnel works.
Bicycles and motorcycles will be able to enter and exit the lower-level carpark and be walked along the footpath to the road. Pedestrian access to the lower-level carpark will be maintained.
Please make contact if you have any questions or concerns regarding this temporary access change by emailing cyp@metrotunnelcyp-dc.com.au or by calling the Project Information Line on 1800 105 105.
We will need to close the driveway for the final time from 7am Monday 13 November to 7pm Wednesday 15 November. This closure will be 24 hours a day. This is because the driveway is made of concrete and needs to be poured and then cured with no disturbance. More information on this closure will be provided closer to the date.
Kind regards,
Remy Fowler
Communications and Stakeholder Engagement Senior Advisor
Domain and South Yarra (Eastern Portal) Precinct
p | 1800 105 105
Good afternoon,
The sun might be shining over Melbourne but it’s pouring here in Domain!
As I write this we’ve poured about 60% of the first of two pours at the Albert Road station entrance. More information on that below.
The surface team have moved into the Albert forecourt area on the corner of Albert Road and St Kilda Road. They have started to prepare for the road works in this area to eventually get St Kilda Road to two lanes. This will kick off with backfilling once the first slab of the roof has been waterproofed.
We will start to decommission the site sheds on Albert Road from Monday. First things first, we will turn off the power to them. Slowly but surely, you’ll start to see elements removed. We will have a small, mobile site shed located in the reserve for the remainder of our time in that area. Hand landscaping continues towards Kings Way.
We are pouring the first roof slab today. We are expecting the last of the concrete trucks and everything cleaned up by about 8pm tonight. We have a handful of crew on site until midnight keeping an eye on the curing, they will be using trowel machines and other hand tools. Next week we will start the waterproofing.
Steel fixing will continue until 1am next week as we work away at the next section.
On Monday night, a crane will be shifted from the Shrine entrance to the Albert Road entrance site.
A milestone in some ways, furniture will soon start to be installed. It’s really starting to look like a station down there!
We received the escalator this week at the Shrine! We are working on the structural elements for the lift shaft and the canopy for the stair entance. Underground, within the entrance, we are finishing and tidying up the concrete works.
On Monday night, a crane will be shifted from the Shrine entrance to the Albert Road entrance site.
I am very pleased to tell you that we finally finished the gas connection today at Bowen Lane! After a lot of rescheduling, that is finally off the list. It does mean that the sewer connection which was meant to start this week will start on Monday, and the strata vault will start next week as well. All going well, late next week we will close the pedestrian connection from St Kilda Road to Bowen Lane so that we can start the kerbs and footpath works out the front of 390 St Kilda Road. There is still a lot of work to happen in this little intersection but great to have a few more things off the list.
Northbound Side (Towards City)
With the barriers removed, this second is largely done. In late November we will lay the final wearing course south of Kings way as part of the Toorak / Kings Way / St Kilda Road intersection resurfacing. We do have some kerb works we need to do on the corner of Bowen Crescent and St Kilda Road in November. To prepare for those works, we will demolish the temporary traffic island there soon.
Southbound side (Away from City)
The drainage between Bromby and Toorak Road is taking long than we had expected. It’s looking like a couple more weeks of work through here before we can commence the install of the separated bike lanes. We will come back next week with a bit of clearer idea of timeframes here.
Have a great weekend all,
Rob and Remy
CYP accept that their process of tipping more asphalt into the hole is not working – they will place a plate over it
Click on the pic
Good afternoon everyone, We’re well and truly into spring, and we’re doing our bit to add some greenery around the site with the addition of some freshly planted grass and some new trees along St Kilda Road – just in time for the Melbourne Marathon to make its way down St Kilda Road (best of luck to anyone tackling a run this weekend).
The big focus for the team at the moment is the tying of steel on the roof of the Albert Road Reserve station entrance. The pouring of this roof will ultimately allow us to backfill the area and pop on another lane for St Kilda Road.
Just a reminder that next week is an RDO, so we’ll be resuming activities on Tuesday.
Some of the concrete barriers on St Kilda Road were replaced with temporary fencing to facilitate a new gate for the Albert forecourt works. Next week, the crews will start to tidy up the area and commence excavation. On Friday, a tree on Albert Road will be pruned to make way for the installation of new street poles. This should only take a couple of hours in the middle of the day. During this time, there will be a contraflow arrangement on Albert Road.
Towards Kings way, paving and finishes continue as we continue the works on the future green wedge between the future station and Kings Way.
As we mentioned in the intro – the big push for us is to get the roof of the station entrance done in this area. The good news is that we’ll be pouring the first section of the roof slab next week. This will be shortly followed by waterproofing and backfilling.
Crews are continuing to work until 1am in the station entrance to install and remove the reinforcement for the stairs, internal walls and roof.
You can see below the progress of the roof as it makes its way from east to west across the roof. In a sign of the station infrastructure coming together – you can also see the beginnings of the new circular elevator shaft to the left of the picture, and in another great development, we’ve got the concrete stairs poured within the main station entrance point.
Down underground inside the station, the back of house rooms are nearly complete with teams busily working on the flooring, painting and signage installation for the myriad of rooms that form the back of house of the new staiton.
At the Shrine entrance, the team is ready to receive the glass reinforced concrete panels and escalators. Soon after these are installed we will start working on the footing for the entrance canopy – which will eventually see the second set of green legs installed within the station (albeit not as many as the main entrance).
Next week is a busy week in Bowen Lane to Bowen Crescent – we will finish the gas installation early next week at Bowen Lane and follow that with the start of the sewer connection and a strata vault in the second half of the week that will support future planting.
Last night the architectural cladding for the inlet exhaust in the median arrived. These will be hung into place on an extended evening shift on Tuesday 17 October. We’ll have a crane on the road as soon as St Kilda Road city-bound closes (around 9pm) the crane will be used to install the last of the architectural cladding.
South East Water have advised us that they’ve pushed back their works to install a water valve has been delayed to Thursday 19 October (with Friday as contingency). The location of the valve is within our site, opposite Bowen Lane on the Melbourne Grammar School side. Most of the work will take place during the day but the final touches will happen at night. South East Water will contact those who are affected.
Before the end of the month, we will undertake site investigations on Bowen Crescent in preparation for our underground LV connection. This will include saw cutting and NDD and we’ll extend the pedestrian detour a little further down Bowen Crescent while the works are underway.
Northbound Side (Towards City) (night works)
Last night, the barriers were removed on the southern side of Kings Way. A few still remain between Kings Way and Bowen Crescent, these will be removed tonight.
We will do some minor works to update the line marking in the Kings Way / Toorak Road / St Kilda Road intersection on Tuesday night 17 October.
Southbound side (Away from City)
You will have noticed a big change on the outbound with the replacement of concrete barriers with bollards. Next steps for this section is to commission the irrigation system, profile and lay the final wearing course of road and line mark. Once this is done, we will be able open up parking in this stretch.
Drainage works continue between Bromby and Toorak road with the final connection works starting from tomorrow with the closure of a laneway. Once drainage is complete, we still have a few weeks in this area to complete the separated bike lanes and road.
Have a great weekend all,
Rob and Remy
The Botanica 
You must be logged in to post a comment.