Good afternoon everyone,

Welcome to another weekly look ahead of what is happening out in the Domain Precinct next week.

A good week this week despite some wet weather earlier in the week. The team somehow managed to squeeze in a concrete pour on Tuesday in front of the Hallmark in between showers, this meant that we were able to get on with the paving install in this area. Meanwhile, the chiller plant structures at the southern end of site also saw the first of their precast concrete walls get installed last week, and they were quickly followed by the remainder this week. 

Just a reminder that next Monday is an RDO, so we’ll resume on Tuesday morning.

1. Station Roof Works and Bowen Lane Utility Works

The pedestrian detour down Bowen Lane came into effect this week and following the saw cutting, next week will see excavation and non-destructive digging to identify service locations. The works to tie the station roof into the d-wall are also progressing well, the cleanout of the last section of exposed roof is nearly complete and next week we’ll see the steel fixers on site, doing what steel fixers do best. We’ll soon see the area concreted, waterproofed and backfilled. Longer term we’ll install the final drainage run back across the top of the completed box towards Bowen Crescent (residents of the Botanica who use the basement carpark will be pleased to hear that the team had the foresight to install the drainage underneath the new temporary driveway before we put cars back on it – which means one less carpark closure) 

2. Albert Road Reserve Station entrance

With the first section of the concrete ground slab poured in the Albert Road Reserve station entry, things are looking decidedly less muddy at the base of the entrance. If you happen to have a view over the site, you’d see that there has still been some excavator activity in the box this week, this is to finalise a number of pits within the station entrance. The focus from here is to finalise the shotcreting of the walls (spraying concrete), and it won’t be long before the steel fixing for the base slab is underway.

3. Albert Road North construction

Works in the Albert Road area are in full swing and the team are progressively making their way from east to west. The first completed section of bluestone was the driveway at 1 Albert Road, which was opened just in time for some garage door repairs, the pavers are making their way down past the Ramsay Clinic. Elsewhere on the site the focus remains on the installation of the drainage lines along Albert Road – not incredibly exciting but very important to manage future rain events. 

4. St Kilda Road median works – South

The back end of next week will see the parking removed in front of the Royce Hotel (Previously advertised for the 15 May – but now happening at the end of shift on the 25 May) Once we’ve taken this parking, we’ll asphalt over the existing bluestone in the gutter, turning it into a temporary bike lane, and shifting the traffic lane towards the kerb. This will give us the room we need to start constructing the inner traffic lane of St Kilda Road.  As I’ve flagged previously, we’ll need to remove one tree in front of the Royce Hotel – and we’ll have the space to do this once we’ve shifted the traffic over. We had originally notified for this tree removal last year, but after a review, we pushed it back to this year. As always, even when we’ve got an opportunity to remove a tree that has been approved for removal, we don’t do so until it’s absolutely necessary to continue. This tree will likely be removed in mid June

5. St Kilda Road median works – North

We’re over half way along the installation of the new drainage run between Park Street and Dorcas Street. This drainage installation is a very similar process to the one that will take place between Toorak Road and Bowen Crescent in around August this year, with excavation of a long trench and installation of the new drainage pipes. Once we’ve got this drainage run complete, we’ll quickly follow with the installation of the new separated bike lanes.

Keep an eye in your email and letter boxes, as next week we’ll also put out a construction notice flagging some big changes to the traffic arrangements at Park Street, down to Dorcas Street. It will be a significant change, with the closure of Park Street access into St Kilda Road, the closure of the Park Street pedestrian crossing, and the closure of the pedestrian crossing over St Kilda Road at Park Street.  I’m sorry to say that the dreaded detour down Park Street to Wells Street and back up again is back again. Thankfully this is the last of major works in this intersection, and once complete, we’ll have the left turn into both the centre carriageway and service lane reopened – as well as additional parking in the inner carriageway. We’re expecting these works to kick off in June and run for four weeks.

6. Station box construction

After 2 week of saying there was not too much new happening in the station box, I promised that I’d sit down with one of our engineers working down in the station box and get the good word on what is happening downstairs. I’ve managed to pin someone down who’s response was ‘nothing too interesting’. Undeterred, I pressed for more detail and I can report that we’re well on the way to commissioning the new lifts and elevators, both from tram stop down to concourse level, and from concourse level down to platform level – as well as installing many of the architectural ceiling features on both platform and concourse level. I’ve included a photo today of the team installing one of the large yellow drum feature lights at platform level. Most interesting of all has been the nocturnal activities down on platform level. While we’ve been sleeping, the team are doing ongoing testing on the functionality of the platform screen doors that now line the platforms. Elsewhere underground there is a lot of work to finish off the back of house rooms in the station, with plastering and painting happening.

7. Shrine Entrance

As I mentioned last week, we’ll soon see an extension of our hoarding within the shrine grounds, the reason for this is that the works within the Shrine entry are progressing well, and we’ll ultimately need the extra room to install the new canopy over the station stairs in the coming months. I promised a sneak peak of the new hoarding design, which I’ve now attached here below the map. Eagle eyed pundits may recognise it as a piece by artist Annie Davidson, that previously adorned the tram shelter at the intersection of Park Street and St Kilda Road. Their stay on these shelters was cut short by the removal of that tram stop and the commissioning of the new tram stop, they now get a new lease of life on the revised hoarding.

8. Park Street to Albert Road

With the concrete pour that took place on Tuesday, the team should make short work of the bluestone laying in front of the Hallmark, this will be followed by some works to complete the retaining wall adjacent to the footpath. While it wont be next week, we’ll soon start work on the legac pedestrian connection up to the new tram stop – this connection point branches off just next to the Hallmarks service driveway and heads up towards St Kilda Road. It will be a little while before pedestrians are using it to get to the new tram stop though, as we’ve got some work still to be done this year to complete the median at the intersection of Albert Road and St Kilda Road.

Have a great weekend

Thanks, Rob

Good afternoon everyone,

I hope everyone has had a great week, the miserable weather has finally turned around just in time for the weekend!

Headline item for this week are the footpath works on the southern side of Albert Road. Right down at the end of the road we’ll be removing two trees (tomorrow) – This includes the tree on the south-west corner of Albert Road near Kings Way and one of the palm trees (the other palm will be retained as part of the design)  These trees aren’t two of the trees that we’ve been aiming to retain, unfortunately these two clash with the final design and have to be removed.

I realise I’ve been the bearer of nothing but bad news on trees of late, so it’s pleasing to report better news further up the footpath – we’ve excavated past seven trees that were approved for removal, however the non-destructive digging (NDD) works have revealed that we will be able to retain all seven. Fingers crossed that the good news continues as we make our way down Albert Road.

1. Station Roof Works and Bowen Lane Utility Works

With Bowen Lane closed, the team have made short work of the remaining section of excavation along this stretch. This area actually had the majority of the d-wall broken back prior to St Kilda Road being relocated back in 2019, so progress has been a little quicker. The next stage is the return of everyone’s least favourite piece of equipment – the NDD truck – to clean out the final section of roof, before it is tied to the station wall and poured.

I forecast last week that there are going to be a few utilities works in Bowen Lane following the D-wall works (Our survey lines spray painted on the road is usually a dead giveaway).

Bowen Lane has won the trifecta, with gas, water and sewer works all set to commence next week (a stormwater connection is also thrown in for good measure) What this means for pedestrians heading down St Kilda Road footpath is a short detour down, across and back up Bowen Lane to continue on St Kilda Road. The existing orange plastic traffic barriers in Bowen Lane will remain where they are and we won’t continue our work area any further than currently set out.

The first of those will start next week with some saw cutting of the roadway, followed by NDD, excavation and service laying. We’ve kicked these works off a little earlier in an effort to get Bowen Lane re-opened as soon as possible.

2. Albert Road Reserve Station entrance

The team reached an important milestone today as the main excavation is now complete and we have reached the base level and begun the initial concrete pour for the ground slab. Despite the weather, the team have made fantastic progress in this area. We’ve also only got one final pile to break down, so the station box will soon be entirely connected to the concourse level of the main station. I’ve included a photo today of the first section of concrete ground slab poured. You’ll notice you can see directly through to the concourse level, underneath the tram canopy.

3. Albert Road North construction

As I mentioned in the introduction, the works on the southern footpath are progressing well, with some excellent news for the trees along this section. We’ll be progressively making our way down through this section with the laying of bluestone. The driveway of The Domain was the first to see bluestone laid, we’re anticipating that we’ll see the driveway reopened next week, a little earlier than first anticipated.

4. St Kilda Road median works – South

As promised, the works commenced this week on the kerb-side works next to Melbourne Grammar School. We didn’t get as far along this section to commence the removal of parking in front of The Royce Hotel as forecast though. Rather than close the parking on the 15^th as I’d suggested, we’re instead going to push these works back to the end of this month, and focus efforts on the completion of the inner lane (parking staying for longer is never an unpopular announcement). As mentioned last week , we’d originally planned to remove all the parking between Bromby Street and Toorak Road in one hit, but we’ve instead staged this approach to retain on-street parking for as long as we can.

Over in the median, the first section of the pre-cast concrete arrived on site for the chiller plant structures, we should see that start to go up tomorrow and into next week.

5. St Kilda Road median works – North

We’ve hit a snag in the form of an electrical conduit in a location slightly different to where it was supposed to be in the bike lane sections between Park and Dorcas Streets (rest assured we neither hit, nor snagged the conduit itself – this is the reason we do so much work with our NDD sucker trucks)  What this means is that we have to do a bit of design work here and work around the conduit. Works will keep progressing along the bike lane in the meantime though.

6. Station box construction

Another week where I didn’t spend anywhere near enough time underground in the station box to be able to provide a meaningful update on the wonderful work that the team are doing down there. Next week I’ll collar one of the lead engineers and get them to provide me with a rundown on all the highlights of station construction to make up for my scant updates of late.

7. Shrine Entrance

As I mentioned last week, the concrete has been poured within the Shrine Entrance for the base slab, the internal wall construction is also well underway. Very soon you’ll see some works the Shrine area to extend our hoarding line out to expand our site footprint to allow the installation of the station entrance canopy and the stairs exiting the Shrine entrance. Once we’ve completed all the final checks on the proposed alignment, the intention is to shift the new hoarding over the coming weeks. It will also feature an refresh of the creative design application, I’ll include a sneak peak in next week’s update.

8. Park Street to Albert Road

Like the other areas of footpath construction, we’re seeing some good progress now on the section in front of Domain Hill. The access to the stairs of Domain Hill will be reopened first thing on Monday morning. An enormous thanks to the residents there for their patience.

The news for Hallmark residents is that on Tuesday we’ll have the concrete pumps in place to pour the final base for their pavers – as well as the retaining wall that runs adjacent.

Have a great weekend

Thanks, Rob

Good afternoon everyone,

This week’s look ahead is coming to you on a Thursday, not for any special reason, other than the fact that I’ll be away from the office on Friday and Monday.

Next Monday is an RDO on site, so there won’t be any works out on site.

The long term weather forecast for next week isn’t looking fabulous – so we’re expecting that progress on site might be slowed up a little next week.

There are two big changes that have come into effect today. The first is some good news, with Botanic residents driveway is now open. While I recognise that everyone is dealing with the regular changes within the precinct, a big thankyou does have to be extended to Botanica residents who use the basement carpark of the building – their cars have been relocated to nearby parking garages for the past few weeks. Thankfully we’ve managed to reopen the driveway a week ahead of schedule.

Unfortunately, as mentioned last week, the early completion of this section means that Bowen Lane will close at St Kilda Road today for a period of three months.  We’ll do our best to also shorten up this duration and get the access reopened.

1. Station Roof Works

As per the introduction, these works are progressing well – and the closure of Bowen Lane at St Kilda Road is now in effect. 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. (The map below is now updated as promised)

2. Albert Road Reserve Station entrance

Excavation remains the flavour of the week next week on site, we’re currently at three out of the four levels of excavation to make it down to base slab level. Despite the heavy weather of late, the teams are making some good progress. The wet weather has made it difficult to keep the streets clean directly out of site, the sweeper truck is working overtime and we’ll keep a close eye on the state of the road.

3. Albert Road North construction

The parking has closed on the southern side of Albert Road as forecast last week. We’ve held off diverting pedestrian foot traffic onto the roadway until we’ve got the first section underway, but this will happen overnight tonight.

Next week we’ll start on the footpath and excavate along the full length and do non-destructive digging (NDD) work with the sucker trucks to identify location of both tree roots and services.

As I’ve mentioned before, the trees along this section are approved for removal, however if the structural roots are deep enough that the tree can be retained, then they will be left in place. If the arborist advises that the tree cannot be retained, they’ll be removed in the coming weeks. I’ll update on the outcome of these investigations as we go.

If you’ve walked past the driveway at The Domain or in front of Domain Hill and Hallmark apartments, you’ll get a sense of how the works will progress; excavation, investigations, concrete pour and then bluestone laying. Once its underway it will progress fairly swiftly from east to west.

Elsewhere in Albert Road, the drainage installation is continuing, we’ll have a small pedestrian detour at the base of the reserve tomorrow so we can complete the drainage installation where the footpath currently runs. It’s a short term diversion just while we do the drainage install in this section.

4. St Kilda Road median works – South

Next week we’ll see kerb works for the separated bike lanes in front of Melbourne Grammar.  Looking further ahead, on the 15 May we’ll permanently remove the St Kilda Road on-street parking in front of the Royce Hotel, we’d originally planned to remove all the parking between Bromby Street and Toorak Road in one hit, but we’ve instead staged this approach to retain on-street parking for as long as we can. The section in front of the Royce will be the first to be permanently removed, followed by the remaining parking in June.

Over in the median, the steel frames for the chiller plant structures is now fully complete and we’ll now see the pre-cast concrete sections installed around the frame.

5. St Kilda Road median works – North

We’re making progress with the drainage installation underneath the future separated bike lane and parking between Park Street and Dorcas Street. The sections of drain are on site and are progressively being installed as each area is excavated.

6. Station box construction

Not a great deal to report from downstairs in the station box. I don’t want to downplay these works too much, as it’s obviously of great interest to those who are working to get the power commissioned to run test trains, but in terms of visuals and progress updates, it doesn’t make for great reading. So for now, I’ll just say everyone is hard at work and it is progressing well.

7. Shrine Entrance

The base of the entrance at the Shrine of Remembrance is now a cobweb of tied steel, we’ll pour concrete into these tied sections on Friday morning, which will be a great milestone to have the base slab poured. As I’ve mentioned before, the entrance at Albert Road Reserve is following the same construction method as the Shrine Entrance, so this steel tying and concrete pouring will feature in the Albert Road Reserve entrance update before too long.

8. Park Street to Albert Road

Progress has been a tad slow in the section in front of the Hallmark, this is primarily while we do our due diligence on the trees through this section. The trees that couldn’t be retained were removed on Wednesday, and we’re now doing the final leveling works and retaining wall formwork. The aim is to pour concrete in this section next week. It’s a tricky section to position both a concrete pump and a concrete truck, while also keeping pedestrians moving through here – but we’ll implement a minor detour next Thursday and Friday and pour concrete onto both the future footpath and the new retaining wall.  

Have a great weekend

Thanks, Rob

Good afternoon everyone,

I finally have a have some good news on the works out the front of Botanica.

Originally scheduled to finish on the 13 May – we are going to have the works complete and the driveway reopened this Thursday evening, (4 May)

It will likely reopen at the end of the shift, at 6pm – but may be earlier if everything goes to plan.

The only thing that might trip us up is the weather – but the forecast is looking good so far.

A few things to note:

• The Botanica driveway entry/exit during this next stage will be via St Kilda Road – not Bowen Lane as previous
• Your Ace/Nation parking passes will remain active until 13 May. Feel free to use them for any family/visitors up until that point
• When you’re done with your pass – If you can pop them into the mail slot on Paul’s office (Building Manager)
• We’ve got some line-markers working in Albert Road overnight – I’ll get them to swing by and linemark the Botanica driveway at the end of their shift
• Bowen Lane will be closed at St Kilda Road at the same time – It doesn’t directly relate to the driveway, but just thought I’d flag this, as it does change your access to Kings Way southbound.

Lastly, A huge, huge thankyou to everyone for being patient and understanding during these works.

Working with Ace Parking was very challenging, and Nation Parking occasionally had their hiccups as well – my apologies that the pass system wasn’t as smooth as I would have liked, but again, a massive thanks to everyone for bearing with me while we ironed out the kinks.

I’ll be in touch tomorrow to confirm the reopening time.

Thanks, Rob

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

As part of the Metro Tunnel project, they have installed a lap pool in front of us in St Kilda Rd – complete with Yarra River water and lane ropes.

I keep getting those flashbacks of that Clark and Dawe spoof about Olympics – I don’t think our pool is the standard 50m.

Good morning everyone – It appears that the weekly update didn’t go through yesterday afternoon.

Resending this morning.

Have a great weekend!

Thanks, Rob

Good afternoon all,

I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter Holiday break, while its been a short week on site, we’ve made the most of it and implemented a few changes on site. Most notably the activation of the centre carriageway and the start of the work on the separated bike lanes between Park Street and Dorcas Street.

1. Station Roof Works

Kicking off this section update with a huge thanks to residents of the Botanica who access their driveway via St Kilda Road. We’ve had to relocate everyone’s cars from this garage while we embark on the next stage of excavation, d-wall demolition and station roof tie in works.

The team are off to a good start and next week we’ll see the excavator down to the tie-in point, the sucker trucks will move in for clean-up, while the excavator continues to work its way north in front of 390 St Kilda Road.  As I mentioned previously, the section we started a few weeks ago has proved a little tricky with the final steel tying in the corner, but we expect that by tomorrow we’ll have the first concrete poured into this tied-in section of the station roof, with waterproofing underway next week. The area is then backfilled, which is likely early the following week (or late next week if waterproofers get a good run)

2. Albert Road Reserve Station entrance

Excavation continues along at Albert Road Reserve Station entrance, not much else to report here, the team are progressively excavating down and coating the exposed piles with shotcrete ( a sprayed form of concrete) This will continue to be the main activity next week.

3. Conduit Connection – Anzac Tram Stop

We finally have something to report here, with the electricity provider giving us the all clear to connect in the power to the new tram stop on 26 April, this means the decommissioning of the generator in front of Melbourne Grammar.

4. Albert Road North Construction

Albert Road North will remain in drainage construction mode for a while as the team work their way up the site. Last week we demolished a small traffic island in front of Albert Road Clinic, this will provide us with a bit more room to move cars through while we have the Southern footpath under construction in May. Next week will be more drainage and preparatory works for the future road surface.

5. St Kilda Road median works – South (Nightworks –14 April)

As mentioned in last week’s update, we’ll be shifting traffic barriers between Barwise Street and Toorak Road overnight on the evening of the 14 April (tonight).

This traffic barrier shift will allow works to start on the inner lane – One change that will take effect is that you will no longer be able to turn right from St Kida Road into Kings Way until these works are complete later this year.

6. St Kilda Road median works – North

Last night the switch for city bound traffic came into effect, with traffic now using the centre carriageway and the service lane used for local traffic and bicycles only. It allows us to start construction on the separated bike lane through the section of St Kilda Road between Park Street and Dorcas Street. We’ll see some profiling of the roadway underway next week to prepare for the bike lane construction, the first activity is drainage installation that kicks off with some service investigation excavation with NDD trucks. 

7. Station box construction (Extended Concrete Pours)

While the works underground have largely been out of site and out of mind, this week there will be some minor activity on the surface as we complete final section of the second-stage concrete pour for the newly installed track slab and track through Anzac Station. These final pours will occur next week – and while we’ll aim to wrap up by 10pm, the team advise that it’s highly likely that some of these concrete pours will run overtime, but they expect all pours will be wrapped up on surface by midnight.

8. Shrine Entrance

Nothing new to report at the Shrine entrance, with steel fixing underway for the future base slab and internal walls.

9. Park Street to Albert Road

As I noted in last week’s update, after an arborists assessment of the root situation, one of the trees in the work area in front of the Hallmark will need to be removed (the smaller of the two). We expect this will happen next week. The other tree along the footpath will have NDD excavation carried out next week, I’ll advise everyone of the outcome once we know more. Otherwise, the installation of pavers in this area will be the main task for next week.

Thanks Rob