Good afternoon everyone,

We hope everyone has had a great week – Spring is in the air and I’m sure we’re all looking forward to the weather starting to fine up

Below is a snapshot of the works coming up on site next week.

Just a reminder that next Monday is an RDO, so no works on site.

Anzac Station entrance construction – Tram Interchange

The works on new tram canopy are nearing completion, with the just the works on the fascia continuing around the permitter of the canopy. Next week, the installation of the fascia is expected to continue up until 10pm. This will involve workers in elevated work platforms (cherry pickers) attaching fascia with hand tools. These works aren’t expected to generate significant noise.

The removal of the cranes working on the canopy has cleared the way underneath for works to commence on the installation of the services that will sit underneath the canopy. We’ve spoken about these works in previous weeks, it involves the digging of trenches and laying of conduits into the trenches. Next week the trenching and conduit laying isn’t expected to run into any extended hours, however there may be some waterproofing works that continue past 6pm next week. Like the fascia works, these only involve hand tools and aren’t expected to generate much noise.

Station box construction

The works in the station box haven’t changed course recently, it’s blockwork and room builds in the northern section of the concourse level, with some of the ventilation equipment now arriving on site. At the southern concourse end the finer fit-out details continue in the more completed rooms.

Down at the platform level the biggest development is the start of installation of the first of our elevators from concourse down to the platform, next month we’ll also land the new stairs from concourse level down to the platform. The fire escape stairs are complete, but this will be the first of the public access stairs to be installed in the station box. The works to prepare for the installation is underway, with the stairs expected to be installed later this month.  This month we’ve included a photo of a freshly poured section of the platform topping slab, where you can also see where the new stairs will be installed, flanked on either side by the escalators.

Shrine Entrance

The piling rig that was moving around the perimeter of the shrine entrance has now completed its task.
Now that it has left site, works will commence on the initial excavation. This initial excavation will only go down to around 2-3m, allowing the team to start of construction on the roof with the start of formwork and capping beam construction to begin on top the existing piles. The initial excavation is expected to start next week and finish the week after.

As evidenced by the short-lived stay of the piling rig, this section of the Shrine entrance is relatively small and we expect that the entire excavation of this area will take four weeks to complete (two weeks for initial and two weeks for base excavation). Though it will vary day to day – we’d expect an absolute maximum of 20 in/out truck movements per day to cart away excavated material. After the initial excavation, the excavation down to base is expected to start in early October. Due to the location of the Shrine entrance and the current site configuration, trucks will need to access the site via Domain Road for these works.

Surface Works

There is no shortage of activity on surface level at Anzac Station, it is peak-hour on top as the work crews prepare the site for the upcoming realignment of St Kilda Road tram tracks, which will also signal the commencement of 24/7 works to put the tram tracks into their final alignment and commission the new tram stop. These works are scheduled to commence on the 27November and will continue until around the 16 December. We’ll have more information on these works as the works program is finalised, but in the meantime the team are focussed on getting the site ready for this critical date. We’re expecting the first section of tram track to arrive on site and be installed later this month, so the final tram alignment will start to become very visible.

Elsewhere on site, at the southernmost section of the site, the delayed pour strip is nearing completion and steel tying is well underway at the site of the ventilation shafts. Next week we’ll see some clean up works on the broken back section d-wall to prepare it for a screed pour and waterproofing.

In the middle of site, the last sections of d-wall have been removed, signalling and end to one of the high impact activities on site. There are still some sections of the working surface that will need to be broken up to put in the final layer of fill, but this is non-reinforced concrete that won’t take any time at all to break out and remove from site.  This will allow us to continue the preparations for the new southbound section of St Kilda Road through the exiting site.

Pit Lid Repair

The pit lid repair at the southern end of St Kilda Road has had some false starts of late. We’ve managed to secure a new date for these works to take place Friday 16 September (next Friday)  We’ll confirm this in next week’s update, but as per the last booking we had, we will close the southbound lane of St Kilda Road while we carry out these works with the fix expected to take around about an hour to complete and is not expected to generate much noise at all.

Once again, we can only get the road shut from 11:30pm due to the football at the MCG where the Cats will be taking on the winner of the Dees vs the Lions (Who knew this pit-lid update would morph into an ongoing AFL finals series update)

Thanks, Rob and Christian

I have quite a lot of news covering the next 6 months.

Be aware that the dates are my best estimates, no guarantees….and some things may change

Let me start with the high level info

• The new tram stop under the green legs will be operational before Xmas
  • For this stop to be fully operational, they will be laying tram tracks in CYP’s current work areas over the next 10 weeks.
  • From November 27 for about 3 weeks, they will be working 24*7 to connect those new tracks into the current system. This will be VERY noisy. They call this the occupation work.
  • All the various sheds etc that are now in the middle of St Kilda Rd need to be moved. They will be moved into the Albert Rd Reserve before Xmas. The park will become a work site. In the new year they will commence building the station entrance inside the park.
  • From early January until late March (roughly), they will be working right on our doorstep again. This will only be during the day but will involve jackhammers and other very noisy gear (and yes the footpath will be dug up again)

A few details that surround each of these pieces of work

The Occupation prep work – Now until Nov 27

• The end date of the occupation cannot really slip – their entire focus between now and November 23 is getting ready for that work. We may see some work up until 10pm on some nights
• St Kilda Rd heading southwards is currently on our side of the new station, in about a month it will move across to the other side. From this time for about a year, there will be no right turn from Park St into St Kilda Rd.
• We will start seeing rail being delivered and installed in the CYP work areas.
• Installation of bike lanes has already commenced in front of the Shrine area. That will continue southwards.
• It is not part of the occupation prep but of great interest – the concrete precast panels for our vents will occur in late September. The external ‘cladding’ (Beautification??) will occur later.

The Occupation work (Nov27 – Dec 16)

• The first 5 nights will be the noisiest – jackhammers and concrete smashing.
• The tram stop on the city side of Park St will be removed during this time
• Yarra Trams have committed to minimise (not eliminate reversing beepers)
• For these 3 weeks, there will be no general traffic in St Kilda Rd northwards from Toorak Rd. Local traffic (us) will be able to get to our building. Be aware NO traffic will be able to get past Bowen Lane heading towards the city. I know that’s messy but it’s only 3 weeks.

Pre-Xmas work

• As part of moving the sheds across to the park and in preparation for the station entrance, a few trees may need to be removed. These were identified many months ago as likely to go. CYP have to go through a process but they are likely to go. There are also a two trees up near the Park St Tram Stop that will go.
• The parking immediately in front of The Domain will go.
• Once the tram tracks in front of us have moved towards Melbourne Grammar School, the lanes of St Kilda Rd towards the city will also move temporarily towards the school. This frees up an area between those traffic lanes and our building to enable CYP to work in January – March next year. It will look ugly and there will be fences and it will create hassles with drops offs, bins and dumb drivers again.

Another traffic matter to be aware of – from late November for many months, there will be no left turn from St Kilda Rd into Albert Rd, we will have to use Park St.

A few pictures to explain

Next closure will be on Friday 7am – 11am. And then again all day on Tuesday and Wednesday next week.

Driveway access will be maintained but may be a tad tricky again

Lots more info below

Good afternoon everyone,

Thought I’d send around an early heads up on some works tomorrow night.

We’ve got confirmation that we’ve secured a timeslot to fix a faulty pit lid in the middle of the southbound lane of St Kilda Road.
Those at the south of the site might have noticed it make a thudding sound as cars drive over it at night.

We’ve got a time slot booked for:

Friday 2 September 11:30pm – 6am

During this time we will close the southbound lane of St Kilda Road while we carry out these works.

Rest assured the works will not take that long.  The fix itself is expected to take around about an hour to complete and is not expected to generate much noise at all.

The timeslot reflects the road closure booking.

Unfortunately we can only get the road shut from 11:30pm due to the football at the MCG where the D’s are taking on the Swans.

Best of luck to any Demons or Swans fans on this list! (Or indeed anyone with a team in the finals)

Thanks, Rob and Christian

A number of you have noticed that there is a drain cover that goes ‘clunk clunk’ every time a vehicle goes over it. It is on the southbound side but seems to be getting worse.

Current plan is to close St Kilda Rd briefly on Friday night and fix it

Not yet confirmed

Great arvo to do it

We have only had one person on Level 5 – c’mon lift your game !!

Survey

Summary of activities this week in the south

You will notice that D-wall demolition works will continue on top of the southern station box with the hammer and excavator working from north to south throughout this week.

Following this stage, we will continue the clean out of the delayed pour strip in this area with NDD sucker trucks in operation this week and going into next week.

Towards the end of this week, there will be some form reo pour with concrete pouring in those sections that have been cleaned out.

This will be the bulk of the works in this zone but do let us know if you have any further questions.

Happy to assist wherever possible.

Best regards

Rob and Christian

The Botanica Christmas brunch

• Sunday December 18
• 7:45am – 10am
• The Botanical Hotel in Domain Rd.
• $40 per head

More info to come