The Minister for Planning, Mr. Walker, said yesterday that the new planning rules for Melbourne would prepare for a transit mall along Swanston Street to Bourke Street. Mr. Walker said the new interim development order, to be announced next week, would not automatically introduce a mall because a strategy to reroute traffic around Swanston Street had to be completed. Up to 60 per cent of traffic in Swanston Street is through traffic and does not serve city retailing. “We’re heading towards a Swanston Street mall,” Mr. Walker said. “It’s a traffic issue at the moment but a mall – that’s where I want to be.” Mr. Walker said the mall concept tied in with the announcement by the Minister for Transport, Mr. Crabb, of big renovations at Flinders Street railway station. The Ministry for Transport will initially build a new concourse for the station along the Swanston Street elevation. Old kiosks and food stalls underneath the concourse will be demolished, new paving laid and modern ticket offices installed closer to station platforms.

Flinders Street Station in 1991. Credit:Ken Irwin The station area will be reroofed and glass panels will be installed near the new platform entrance bays to open up views of trains to the public. A top quality restaurant will be built overlooking the Yarra River and its design will complement the architecture of the Arts Centre across the way. Mr. Crabb said yesterday that all renovations would be completed without altering the station’s historic façade. “It is the interior which is to be renovated to bring the building into the 21st century,” he said.

Mr. Crabb said the development which would begin next May, should create at least 200 jobs in the building industry. “There should also be employment generated by an expansion of retail outlets when the renovations are complete,” he said. First stage work will also include modern ramps to the platforms, new booking offices and new staff quarters under the famous Flinders Street station dome. The architect for the project, Mr. Kris Kudlicki, who works for the Railway Construction and Property Board, said yesterday that plans for the other three stages of the redevelopment included an office building in Flinders Street close to Banana Alley, west of the station. Swanston Street turns into a pedestrian mall in 1992. Credit:Sandy Scheltema

Mr. Kudlicki said if the Government could commit the funds, plans were being prepared for a walkway along the Yarra to connect the station with the World Trade Centre, He said there were also plans to redevelop the station’s offices in Flinders Street into a series of nightclubs, bars and discotheques. A variety of schemes, but little action The first call for redevelopment of Flinders Street came in 1925 from the Metropolitan Town Planning Commission. In 1949, a Melbourne planner, James Alexander Smith, drew the first plans to roof the yards. The concept has fascinated people intent on developing the Jolimont railyard site. In 1958 the designer of the Comedy, the Metro and Her Majesty’s theatres Mr. Neville Hollinshed, drew plans to redevelop the area with a city square, a new station, a new town hall and a public building. The city fathers approved of the plan.

A Melbourne woolbroker, William Lempriere, had a grand plan in 1961 to give Melbourne six acres of open space by roofing the Flinders Street rail area. Yet another entrepreneur, Mr. Herby Jones, decided in 1963 that a 60-storey skyscraper and 1500 space carpark was the answer to the rail area. Architect Kris Kudilicki. Credit:Ruth Madison Ten years later he sold his 50 per cent share in the idea to Meldon Properties, which petitioned the State Government for support for $300 million scheme. The plan envisaged two office towers, one 32-storeys, the other 24-storeys.