Just an introductory message here from Reeve, your new BM and concierge. Very happy to be joining the Botanica, everyone I’ve met in the past two weeks has been wonderfully helpful in getting everything under control. If you have any questions or need a hand with anything, feel free to drop into the concierge office, send me a message on 0467 444 074 or email at botanica400@tpg.com.au
As some trivia, my interests are martial arts, board games, and snowboarding, and I love going camping by the beach.
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.
Albert Road legacy construction
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.
Albert Road Reserve Station Entrance (night works)
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.
Station Fitout
A milestone in some ways, furniture will soon start to be installed. It’s really starting to look like a station down there!
Shrine Entrance (night works)
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.
St Kilda Road – Bowen Lane to Bowen Crescent (night works)
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.
St Kilda Road Bowen Crescent to Toorak Road
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.
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.
Albert Road legacy construction
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.
Albert Road Reserve Station Entrance (night works)
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.
Station Fitout
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.
Shrine Entrance (night works)
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).
St Kilda Road – Bowen Lane to Bowen Crescent (night works)
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.
St Kilda Road Bowen Crescent to Toorak Road
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.
Some of you reported an issue this week with a dog barking / crying. Ada from Bluestone contacted the resident and received this reply.
Dear residents and fellow neighbours,
I do apologise regarding the noise Koko (Shiba-Inu) has been making, I have a good friend of mine whom was needing a hand to take care of Koko whilst she found better lodgings, I was only ever going to look after her temporarily, evidently however she has been making too much noise and I do apologise to everyone affected.
I will look to have her taken to a friend’s farm no later than this weekend.
Again I apologise for any disturbance she may have caused to anyone
Sandy, Jan and I have just spent part of our Sunday evening sorting out this mess….and more.
Can I suggest in future
If you have stuff that is not recyclable – don’t put it in recycling. Pretty obvious hey!! That means pizza boxes, it means foam. it means waxed coated milk containers. If you’re not sure, then look at the display in the lift. There are bins in the car park (green or red lids) that you can use for non-recyclable stuff.
If you are putting cardboard boxes in these bins – break them down. Someone had been cleaning up their shoe boxes and managed to completely fill one bin with just six shoe boxes. There is no magic fairy – break them up.
If you are having a party – at least invite me! I have just taken 8 dozen wine bottles to the City of Port Phillip glass recycling. They can be recycled but lids should be removed. If you have a LOT then drop them at the various glass recycling places in Albert Park.
If you are moving in or out and have masses of stuff then how about YOU take a run to the ‘tip’
It was a short week, both with the long weekend and the delays caused by wet weather. Things have ramped back up and the team is ready for another big week in Domain.
Albert Road legacy construction
Due to the weather this week, the Albert forecourt works we mentioned last week will now happen next week. On Wednesday night (11/10) we will have a crane working for an hour or so on St Kilda Road to move barriers to implement a new construction access gate.
In the linear park, we are about to pour the remainder of the local access road heading from The Domain towards the legacy east /west bound alignment (marked below in orange). This will either happen tomorrow or on Monday. In the park, paving and finishes continue.
Albert Road Reserve Station Entrance
Crews are continuing to work until 1am in the station entrance to install the reinforcement for the stairs, internal walls and roof. Below is a picture of the scaffolding for the roof reinforcement and the reinforcement for the stairs.
Station Fitout
Flooring and fitout continue within the station.
Shrine Entrance
The Shrine entrance team have made some great progress in the last few weeks and have largely finished the escalator structures.
St Kilda Road – Bowen Lane to Bowen Crescent (Night work reminder)
The storm water works should be completed by tomorrow at Bowen Lane, this will be followed by the remainder of the gas and sewer connection. Later we will install of the strata vault, kerbs, footpath and road ways. Thursday night next week, a crew will work an extended shift to install the architectural features on the inlet exhaust in the median, this should only take a few hours once St Kilda Road is closed (more info on that below).
Installation of the water valve will happen within our site, opposite Bowen Lane on the Melbourne Grammar School side on Thursday night (12/10). In the monthly construction update, you would have seen this as a few nights of work but it will just take one. These works involve non-destructive digging, hand tools and potentially some minor asphalting. These works will impact water supply (which is why it is taking place at night), South East Water will contact those who are affected.
St Kilda Road Bowen Crescent to Toorak Road
Northbound Side (Towards City)
On Thursday night, there will be a northbound closure of St Kilda Road so that we can remove the construction barriers from The Lucient building south of Toorak Road to Bowen Cresent and opening the new separated bike lanes through this section.
Southbound side (Away from City)
On Wednesday night, the some of the concrete barriers from Bowen Crescent to the northern pedestrian tram stop crossing will be removed. Works will continue in the southern section towards Toorak Road.
Also, as a quick FYI – there will be a few other organisations working in the area next week. Telstra will start next week to install their communications bank on the Shrine side from Park Street to Domain Road. Trees will also be planted by a separate contractor next week around the Park St intersection.
Thanks to all who participated in the ‘plumbing checks’ and an extra thanks to those who have already done their remediations.
We have renewed our insurance with only a very modest increase AND have been able to reduce our flood excess from $10000 to $5000.
The figure of $5000 is still a big chunk of cash for any of us to find if you flood your apartment and it damages common property or other apartments….so please be careful.
The Botanica 
You must be logged in to post a comment.