An explosion of multi-storey apartments and the construction of the West Gate Tunnel toll road are forcing organisers of St Jerome’s Laneway Festival to abandon their home of nearly a decade.

The Melbourne leg of the popular annual music festival has been held on the banks of the Maribyrnong River in Footscray since 2010, after outgrowing the cramped CBD site that gave birth to the festival as an oversized "block party" in Caledonian Lane in 2005.

But a dramatic rise in the number of new apartments abutting the festival grounds, coupled with the construction of new truck ramps as part of the $6.7 billion West Gate Tunnel project, have been blamed alongside a growing array of pressures on organisers to shift from the current location.

St Jerome's Laneway Festival in 2017. Credit:Darrian Traynor

When co-founders Jerome Borazio and Danny Rogers first moved the festival to the area surrounding the Footscray Community Arts Centre, it was predominantly open space with some light industry.