Red Stairs saga ends with more consultation

After years of complaints, a shelved design competition and another round of promised consultation, the City of Melbourne has finally resolved to get on with renewing Southbank’s much-maligned Red Stairs.

At its March 3 Future Melbourne Committee meeting, councillors voted unanimously to abandon the design competition they had endorsed in August last year and instead pursue an internally delivered renewal of the structure at Queensbridge Square, alongside further targeted consultation with key local stakeholders.

The amended motion commits the council to consult with the Yarra River Business Association, Southbank Residents’ Association, Southbank3006 and other key stakeholders during the design development phase.

The decision marks a notable about-face for the council, which only months ago was championing a design competition as the appropriate way to tackle one of Southbank’s most visibly tired and contested public spaces.

In the end, the committee agreed with what local stakeholders had been saying for years: the Red Stairs had become an eyesore, a safety concern and an increasingly absurd case study in how long it can take local government to address an obvious problem.

Presenting to councillors, Southbank Residents’ Association president Tony Penna said his group had long been sceptical of the proposed design competition, warning it would only delay meaningful action.

“Nearly two years later, those concerns appear justified, with little tangible progress towards resolving what many residents consider a prominent eyesore and safety concern,” Mr Penna said.

He questioned why the council was only now citing site constraints such as the Crown car park entrance and surrounding services as reasons not to proceed with the competition, given those constraints had always existed.

“A design competition, by its nature, is intended to explore possibilities and respond to constraints,” he said. 

Mr Penna also challenged the council’s assumption that the stairs should remain at all, saying earlier consultation as part of stage six of the transformation of Southbank Boulevard had shown strong community sentiment that the structure should be removed entirely. He argued the draft concept now being advanced looked “largely cosmetic” and lacked the ambition warranted by such a prominent and culturally significant site near Birrarung and the historic Falls.

“The draft concept appears largely cosmetic,” he said. “The removal of the upper room and replacement with the viewing platform raises a simple question: a viewing platform to view what?”

His comments cut to the heart of the matter. For years, the community has been told the Red Stairs would be transformed as part of broader visions for Southbank Boulevard and the public realm. Instead, the site has drifted only to arrive back where it might have started: a practical refurbishment and more stakeholder engagement.

It is hard not to see shades of Utopia in the whole saga.

Council officers said the Red Stairs, originally installed in 2005 as a temporary structure, are now in a dilapidated state and require more immediate action than a design competition could reasonably deliver. Constraints include limited load-bearing capacity, significant underground services and the fact the structure sits above the Crown Casino car park entrance.

Crown and Schiavello’s former 2017 plans to build what would have become Australia’s tallest building at 1 Queensbridge St came with a $100 million “public benefits package”, which included renewal of Queensbridge Square.

While the council can be excused for the years of uncertainty surrounding these funds up to when the project’s permit was cancelled by the state government in 2019, the years since have seen progress stall in renewing the area.

Asked whether the structure could simply be removed, the council’s infrastructure boss Rick Kwasek said there were constraints below the stairs that meant “something” would need to remain in place.

The revised concept involves removing the much-criticised “top room”, reducing the visual bulk of the structure, recladding it in more durable and visually softer materials, and adding more trees, planting and seating around the square.

Lord Mayor Nick Reece, who moved the amended motion, acknowledged the community’s frustration and said residents had made their views clear.

“People want this space improved and quickly,” Cr Reece said.

“For several years residents have told us the Red Stairs feel unsafe, unclean, they’re rundown, they’re not inviting, you bake when you sit on them in summer, you freeze on them in the winter, and the structure has well and truly reached its end of life.”

He said the original design may once have looked “trendy and cool” but was “no longer suitable for modern Melbourne”.

Yet the urgency now being expressed only underlines how needlessly drawn out the process has been. Stakeholders have been flagging these exact problems for years. The idea that the city needed to publicly flirt with a design competition before rediscovering the obvious is difficult to defend.

Still, the addition of targeted consultation is a welcome concession, and one Mr Penna had explicitly called for.

The council now says it is aiming to develop the design over the next 12 months, move into procurement later this financial year, and begin construction in the second half of next financial year, with completion targeted in calendar year 2027. •