Transformed City Square set to reopen next year

Victorians have been given a glimpse at what Melbourne’s revamped City Square will look like when it opens next year. 

The iconic public space is undergoing a grand makeover, including an entrance to the Metro Tunnel’s new Town Hall Station and a tribute to the land’s Traditional Owners. 

Artist impressions of the revamped area show welcoming spaces for events, retail and hospitality, along with new landscaping and artworks. 

At the centre will be a permanent Smoking Ceremony dish developed with Wurundjeri Elders, with Woi-wurrung language and artwork etched into surrounding paving and throughout the square. 

These elements are part of the Metro Tunnel’s Connection to Country initiative, which celebrates the Traditional Owners of the lands of the Kulin Nation on which the five new metro stations are built. 

An interactive, digital version of the much-loved Mockridge fountain, known as the “water wall”, will feature along Collins St, while the bronze sculpture Beyond the Ocean of Existence will also return. 

Crews have started building the Town Hall Station’s City Square entrance at the Collins St end of the square.

The station’s glass entrance canopy sits above five escalators leading down into a two-tiered concourse, a grand “square beneath a square” that is expected to be used by more than 10,000 people daily during peak periods. 

Widened pedestrian crossings at the nearby Swanston and Collins streets intersection will accommodate the increased foot traffic and boost pedestrian safety. 

City Square was closed in 2017 for construction on Town Hall Station, one of the five new state-of-the-art underground train stations opening next year that will transform the way Victorians move around our biggest city.

City Square will open to the public next year ahead of the Metro Tunnel opening to passengers.

The Metro Tunnel is the biggest upgrade of Melbourne’s train network since the City Loop opened in 1981 and will double the size of Melbourne’s underground rail network as we move towards becoming Australia’s biggest city. 

The project will connect the busy Sunbury and Cranbourne/Pakenham lines via twin nine-kilometre tunnels under the city, creating an end-to-end rail line from Melbourne’s northwest to the south-east, better connecting all Victorians to jobs, healthcare and education. •