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Consultation begins on Riverside Quay

Consultation begins on Riverside Quay
Sean Car

The City of Melbourne, in partnership with developer, Mirvac, has started community consultation for the redevelopment of the public open space at Riverside Quay in Southbank.

Mirvac has committed about $500,000 in developer contributions to make the Riverside Quay Place Renewal Project possible.

As part of its new 21-storey commercial building at 2 Riverside Quay, which is currently under construction, Mirvac had incorporated plans to redevelop the public square at 8-10 Riverside Quay.  

A community workshop will be held at the Hoopla Room at the Malthouse Theatre in Southbank on Wednesday, June 17 at 6pm, where residents are invited to have their say on what the new Riverside Quay should
look like.

A spokesperson for the City of Melbourne encouraged the Southbank community to get involved in the consultation process.

“In recent weeks, community engagement has been undertaken in the precinct to find out more about what is important to the local community,” the spokesperson said.

“This renewal project will create a vision and a master plan for Riverside Quay and transform the existing area to meet the needs and values of people who visit, live and work in the area.”

“The project will be defined by a generative design process, which will be run in consultation with the local community and key stakeholders via a series of community activities and events.”

At the Future Melbourne Committee meeting held on August 5 last year, Mirvac had put forward two schemes for consideration as part of its original ministerial planning referral for 2 Riverside Quay.

“Scheme A” proposed to construct wholly within the title boundary, while “Scheme B” proposed to acquire an additional 48sqm of council-owned open space.

City of Melbourne councillors unanimously supported the application’s proposal for “Scheme B”, which was later approved by former planning minister Matthew Guy.

Mirvac senior development manager Guy French-Wright said the company was committed to working with the City of Melbourne and the community to revitalise what was an important piece of open space in Southbank.

“It’s clearly been a very neglected part of this side of the city and, part of what we’re planning to do here through the redevelopment, is to invest around half a million of our own money into rejuvenating this square,” he said.

“We understand that, particularly in Southbank, open space is something that the residents and also the workers are crying out for.”

Speaking at last year’s council meeting, Southbank Residents Group president Tony Penna threw his support behind the initiative.

“It is rare to see a developer offer to make contributions to public space at their expense so we commend the developer for that and we believe that those renovations will be of great benefit,” he said.

“While it is difficult for Southbank residents to accept the loss of open space it really is in the best interest of this area to activate it.”

Construction on the first stage of the master plan is expected to be complete in early 2017.

The community can also get involved in the consultation process online by visiting
www.riversidequayplacerenewal.com

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