Thanks Andrew for the tip about this madness

Good afternoon everyone,

Welcome to the weekly stakeholder look ahead for works happening around the Anzac Station site.

As I flagged last week – the construction footprint for the station has expanded this week with the occupation of the parking spaces in the centre median. This will kick off the works to reconstruct Albert Road on its new alignment and the new parkland that features as part of the design. We realise that the loss of parking is a significant change in the area and we appreciate it will certainly take some adjustment.

Below is a snapshot of the works that are coming up next week, hope everyone has a wonderful weekend.

1. Station Roof Works

The minor clean-up work on sections of the wall continued this week and the site gate shift that we mentioned this week has happened today, this will allow the excavator to position itself to break out the surface above the corner of the station box, before excavating down and breaking back the remaining section of wall parallel to Bowen Crescent. We now expect to see the arrival of the non-destructive digging (NDD), or sucker trucks late next week.

• Albert Road Reserve Station entrance

Albert Road Reserve Station entrance is making good progress, the surface of the station entrance looks like a giant IKEA kit with the various lengths of steel laid out neatly in sections ready to be tied into place for the capping beam that runs around the permitter of the station entrance. The team are well underway with this steel fixing. Meanwhile, the excavation is also making good progress with the first stage excavation exposing the sections of the wall that will have temporary ground anchors installed to assist with stability as excavation progresses. More of the same next week at the Albert Road Reserve Station entrance

• Conduit Installation – Albert Road North

These works are now finally complete with the setup removed from the northern side of Albert Road North. Thankyou to everyone with a driveway in this section for your patience while we worked our way down this side of the street. The conduit is now installed and it is over to CitiPower to commence their tie in works to connect the conduits into the network. CitiPower will be carrying out these works themselves and will notify of any excavation or works in the area. I’ll pop them into this weekly look ahead when we are advised as to their timing and methodology.

• Albert Road North Construction

The parking removal in the median of Albert Road North has been implemented. The team have started this week with service investigations in the newly formed construction area – so you’ll have seen the non-destructive digging (NDD), or sucker trucks working their way around the site to identify services prior to the main works commencing.

On the southern footpath of Albert Road, anyone who has walked down there recently will notice it looks like a Jackson Pollock tribute, with a myriad of spray paint on the footpath. The team have been are marking up the area with the expected locations of underground services. As I highlighted in the designs last week – this entire footpath is ultimately going to be replaced with bluestone pavers – but for now the team are in the process of identifying services in preparation for works to commence there in late-March, early April.

Before then, there will be some NDD works on a section of the footpath down towards Kings Way in the middle of next week. Pedestrian access will be maintained, but we will likely need to occupy some of the carparks at the end to position the NDD truck.

Staying in the south-western corner of Albert Road – one of the large trees in this location will also need to be removed later this month. As I’ve outlined previously, every effort is made to maintain trees in the area, and while all the trees on the southern footpath of Albert Road are identified for potential removal in the approved plans – we’re confident that we will actually be able to maintain many of them . We’ll know more once we open up the footpath and identify the underground conditions and structural root orientation – unfortunately this particular tree will not be able to be retained. As mentioned previously, the trees in the central island parking will definitely need to be removed, including one of the palm trees. While the palm tree will be removed at a later date due to its proximity to King Way, the remaining tree removal will likely be late next week. Once these trees are out, we’ll start excavating this entire area to prepare the new surface.

Lastly, on Monday night the team will come through and complete some minor road marking that wasn’t able to be completed on Wednesday/Thursday this week. Rather than close the road again to complete these works, they’ll be done at night when there is less traffic. The works only involve painting the road and are not expected to cause any disruption.

• St Kilda Road median works – South

Next week the team will commence works on the kerb and separated bike lane on the eastern (southbound) side of St Kilda Road. Works will involve pulling up the bluestone pitchers in the kerb between the pedestrian crossing to the tram stop and Bromby Street. Meanwhile, adjacent to the northbound lane of St Kilda Road, formwork continues for both the chiller plant structures.

• St Kilda Road median works – North

Not a great deal of change at the northern end of the site with work continuing on the drainage installation ahead of the asphalting of the central carriageway. The switch to the inner carriageway will also involve works on the middle of the intersection of Park Street and St Kilda Road, as well as completion works on the northern corner of the St Kilda Road/Park Street intersection. Over the next few weeks I’ll provide some information on the works and any changes to traffic or pedestrian routes.

• Station box construction

Down on platform and concourse level it is more of the same, the most notable addition on the concourse level is the installation of some of the feature lighting at concourse level, a sign of the progress of the station build

• Shrine Entrance

The team this week changed tack and commenced breakout of some of the piles that separate the existing concourse level from the open excavation. Breakout will continue tomorrow before excavation resumes on the way down to the base slab in this area.

• Park Street to Albert Road

The team this week began works to construct the final kerb alignment at the southern corner of the Park Street and St Kilda Road intersection, this kerb rebuild is progressing well, with the much awaited reopening of the left turn from St Kilda Road into Park Street still expected at the end of March.

Preparatory work on the separated bike lane, kerb, retaining wall and footpath between Park Street and Albert Road has commenced with some saw cutting on the roadway, this will be followed next week by some drainage installation across the Hallmark’s service driveway.

Before work starts on the new separated bike lanes, the team will begin the first section of the footpath upgrade work in this area. It’s also worth noting that the trees that run along the footpath have been approved for removal as part of the development plans that I circulated last week.  Similar to the trees on the southern footpath of Albert Road, every effort will be made to retain these trees. Over the next few weeks there will likely be some NDD work to identify the location of structural roots of these trees. This work will determine the possible retention of these trees as we move in to build the retaining wall and footpath.

Thanks, Rob

If you park in the Lower car park then make sure you read this

Hmm – better now for pedestrians but still big panels blocking visibility. At least they now provide SOME value…or did they just slip/fall??

Before

After

Good afternoon everyone,

Welcome to the weekly stakeholder look ahead for works happening around the Anzac Station site.

Works on site have taken some significant steps forward in a few key areas, particularly as we begin to construct public realm elements outside of the station footprint.

With this in mind, as a bit of a refresher, I’ve included a link to the Public Realm designs for the new station precinct:

Click to access MT-AZ-Domain-Development-Plan-Minor-amendment-October-2022-Appendix-D.pdf

Also this week, I’ve marked up a map below to help everyone cross reference the works described below to the relevant areas out on site.

1. Station Roof Works

This week we finally saw the excavator and hammer get stuck into the first section of the station roof works in front of 400 St Kilda Road. While the noise and vibration from the hammering is not a welcome addition, the good news is that the works are now underway and making good progress.
The section of wall that runs immediately parallel to 400 St Kilda Road is almost completely broken down after today after starting on Tuesday. There is a small section of wall that runs parallel to Bowen Crescent that the team will need to get stuck into – but before this section starts we’ll clean out the existing debris and shift the access gate on St Kilda Road so that we can position the excavator.

The bulk hammering in this first section should be done early next week, though the excavator will still be on site to chip away at some minor clean up sections, before the non-destructive digging (NDD), or sucker trucks arrive on site. Unfortunately the ongoing drone of the sucker trucks will be a continued presence for at least a week, as we clean out the exposed section of roof and prepare to tie in the final roof section into the D-wall.

2. Albert Road Reserve Station Entrance

Those with a view down to the site will have seen the piling rig taken from site and the concrete trucks rolling into site. This week we’ve broken back a number of the piles to their required height and have commenced the formwork for the capping beam that will be tied into these piles and poured around the perimeter of the entrance roof. Next week will see the form work continue for the capping beam formwork, with the beam to be poured the following week. For those without a view of the site, today I’ve included a photo of the work on the station entrance.

Excavation will also ramp up in the remainder of the station entrance footprint next week

3. Conduit Installation – Albert Road North

As I mentioned last week, works to install new conduits along the northern side of Albert Road North have been progressing very slowly due to the discovery of old services and connections in places that they aren’t supposed to be. The reshuffling of this conduit run has been successfully implemented and this week we started backfilling in a number of completed areas. The team are looking to have these works wrapped up by early next week.  Works to commence construction of the final legacy alignment of Albert Road North are patiently waiting for these conduit works to wrap up, and now that they are nearly complete we’ll move our worksite further west towards Kings Way.

4. Albert Road North Construction

The permanent removal of the central median parking down near Kings Way is now upon us – as mentioned above, as soon as the conduit works are complete we’ll set up the new traffic configuration in Albert Road and take over the central median. The latest thinking is that this will be removed on Wednesday 1 March. This will allow the construction of the new road alignment and parkland – you can see these on page 8 of the public realm design drawings in the link above.

Just a reminder too, that the mid-point zebra crossing in Albert Road will also close at this time, with a new temporary zebra crossing point installed at the base of Albert Reserve. On the day that we switch to the new traffic setup, there will be traffic control in place as we shuffle barriers around and get the new setup in place, this will likely include some closures to the exit out to St Kilda Road from Albert Road, we’ll aim to implement these after peak hour. Access to properties will remain open throughout these works, but there may be some delays as we implement these changes.

5. St Kilda Road median works – South

Down at the southern end of site, formwork is up and running for the first of the chiller plant structures, the blinding layer for the second location further to the south is also poured and planning is underway for the installation of the precast sections of concrete that will form the walls of the chiller plant. We have also commenced work on the inner road lane of St Kilda between Bromby Street and Toorak Road (southbound), once the inner lane is constructed, we’ll shift traffic onto this inner lane and start to build the separated bike lanes and kerb along this section.

6. St Kilda Road median works – North

At the northern end, the preparation works for the central carriage way is nearing completion, with the first of the asphalting works between Park Street and Dorcas Street looking to go down in early March.

Similar to the southern end – once we’ve completed the roadway in the central carriage way, we’ll shift traffic into the middle while we complete the separated bike lanes on the outer lane.

7. Station box construction

Down in the station box, at platform level the works are continuing to install the new platform screen doors along the length of the station platform. Track slab and rail is installed through the eastern side of the platform, with the western side to follow soon. Up on the concourse level the focus is on the myriad of back-of-house rooms within the station, including works to hook the station up to the high voltage power that will ultimately run trains on the network. Underneath the tram canopy works are ongoing to install the balustrades around the perimeter of the oculus that leads from the tram platform down to concourse level.

8. Shrine Entrance

Excavation remains the flavour of the week at the Shrine entrance, the team are working their way down to the base slab in this area. As has been the case since the start of the year, excavation works will continue until 10pm each evening. The team are expecting to hit the base slab level in late March.

9. Park Street to Albert Road

The under bore works to complete the high voltage conduit connection under St Kilda Road are now complete and awaiting CitiPower to make the final tie in. This will require some additional excavation works at the corner of Park Street and St Kilda Road and we understand that CitiPower are looking at commencing these works in mid-March. The much awaited reopening of the left turn from St Kilda Road into Park Street is expected at the end of March.

As mentioned last week, the team have now started on construction of the final design for the section of separated bike lane, kerb, retaining wall and footpath between Park Street and Albert Road. This week the team wrapped up some minor work on a water main connection under the roadway and next week excavation will begin for the new stormwater drainage alignment under the roadway. Looking a little further ahead into March, we’ll see some reshuffling of the pedestrian arrangements on this section of footpath in front of the Domain Hill building and Hallmark Building. The works in this section reconstructing the entire footpath with bluestone pavers and constructing a new retaining wall. Building access to both Hallmark and Domain Hill will be maintained, however pedestrian access points will likely shift around as we complete these footpath works. Further detail on these arrangements will be provided closer to the date. Again, for a refresher on the final design in this area, see the link to the Public Realm Plans included above (Page 5 and 7)

Thanks, Rob

I gave up at about 11am and left for the day – the noise and vibrations were horrible.

As I understand the max vibration today was 1.15mm/s. They tell me that 5 mm/s would damage buildings and 3.5 mm/s would trigger an alert to tell them to stop

Noise levels peaked at 76dB, well under their predictions.

They expect 5 more days of it.

They had told us that the jackhammer would have a noise shroud but they now have discovered that the shroud does not work with this jackhammer

Good afternoon everyone,

I hope everyone is managing to stay cool today, our works have been heated off today as the temperatures have soared, so it should at least make for a quieter in afternoon.

Below is an update on the works planned for next week. Just a reminder that next Monday is an RDO, so we won’t be back on site until next Tuesday

Station Roof Works

Last weeks forecast of excavators starting up on the station roof section at 400 St Kilda Road was a little premature, the design approval for the taller screens attached to the jersey barriers was delayed, meaning the works couldn’t start. These higher screens are to protect those walking directly past the works, so we couldn’t kick off until they were approved and installed. You can expect to see (and hear) the excavators in action from Tuesday.

Albert Road Reserve Station Entrance

The piling around the permitter of the new Albert Station reserve is now complete – this is the last time you’ll see a piling rig on the construction site, as this is the final pile required on the job. Though they’re not the most disruptive piece of equipment on the job, I’m sure everyone will be happy to know that the last pile is in the ground.  Next week will see the top of the piles trimmed back at the northern end of the station works, while excavation will ramp up in the remainder of the station entrance footprint.

Conduit Installation – Albert Road North

While the Albert Reserve Station Entrance is making great progress, the same can’t be said for the conduit works along Albert Road North. The preliminary excavation has uncovered a number of different old services and connections in places that they aren’t supposed to be. This has required a bit of reshuffling for these works and the conduit location.  We’re expecting that these works will wrap up by the end of next week, instead of finishing this week as expected.

Parking Removal – Albert Road North

As a result of the delay to the conduit works, the removal of the central median parking down near Kings Way has also been pushed back. Originally scheduled to be closed off next week, we’re instead looking at closing this parking during the week commencing 27 February.

The mid-point zebra crossing in Albert Road will also close at this time, with a new zebra crossing point installed at the base of Albert Reserve.

St Kilda Road median works

Down at the southern end of site, the blinding layer of concrete for the first of the chiller plant structures has been poured, and formwork is underway for the base slab. Preparation works are underway for the blinding layer in the second location further to the south.  The trees that were to be removed in the median up near Toorak Road were taken down last week. Wildlife checks were conducted on each tree prior to its removal. We originally notified that three trees would be removed, but the team determined that the third tree could remain until later this year as works wouldn’t be required in the immediate future. Any tree removal is delayed until absolutely required to facilitate construction.

The tree removal means that we’ll commence works to build the inner road lane of St Kilda between Bromby Street and Toorak Road (southbound)

No major changes up at the northern end of St Kilda Road, the team are continuing preparations to lay the first of the asphalt for the St Kilda Road centre carriageway between Park Street and Dorcas Street.

Station box construction

No new major milestones to report from inside the station box – we did promise a photo of the track running through the station, which didn’t get attached. It’s now attached showing the tracks running through eastbound section of the station. The west is also underway and making good progress along the tunnels. Once the track slab is installed and the new track affixed, the team make their way along the tracks concreting the track slab into place.

Shrine Entrance

The shrine entrance construction is also continuing with excavation activities as reported last week. Nothing new to report and no new activities expected next week other than excavation.

Park Street under bore

The under bore drill arrived on site last week and made short work of boring underneath St Kilda Road, work will now commence to tie the connection into the existing network. Once this is complete, CitiPower will come and make the final connections, this is expected in late March. The completion of the bore means that the work crews will now switch their attention to the legacy works between Park Street and Albert Road. Next week the kerb and drainage works will start, with the footpath works to follow in the coming weeks.

Thanks, Rob and Christian

The v noisy jack hammering will not happen before Tuesday… They need to sort out fence and lighting first, plus RDO on Monday