By Cara Waters
AFL boss Andrew Dillon believes footy and food are the two things that can transform Docklands’ fortunes.
“I think if we can marry Victorians and Melburnians’ love of food with their love of sport, it’s a pretty good intersection,” he says.
AFL boss Andrew Dillon has made food and entertainment the focus of a $225 million redevelopment of Marvel Stadium.Credit: Getty Images
The AFL and the Allan government have just completed a $225 million renovation of Marvel Stadium to create two public spaces — Stadium Square and City Edge plazas — with the aim of building a better link between the Docklands precinct and Melbourne’s city centre.
“The redevelopment here opens up the stadium and allows it to be not just an event stadium of 60 to 70 events a year, but a precinct that operates 365 days a year,” Dillon says.
The Age’s Docklands series explores what has gone wrong with Melbourne’s most maligned suburb and what could be done to fix it.
Newly opened hospitality venues at Marvel Stadium are designed to cater to more than just the footy or event crowd. The Earl Canteen, on the concourse, is open on match and event days, and until 2pm on weekdays. Friends of Fire, a pub-style venue with American food, and Amphora, a plush restaurant above it, partly inspired by New York steakhouses, are new dinner options on various days.
The AFL’s next focus is the waterfront-facing side of the stadium, which houses the league’s offices, but remains largely cut off from the rest of the precinct.
“There are great views from there,” Dillon says. “I think there’ll be opportunities for us to develop the western side and the northern side of the stadium, but we will want to bed this [city-facing] redevelopment down first.”
Marvel Stadium chief executive Scott Fitzgerald says the AFL would ultimately like to undertake a multibillion-dollar development on the waterfront side of the stadium, including a mixture of accommodation, retail and food and beverage developments, as well as a hotel like the one at Adelaide Oval.
“It’s about creating a bit of a public realm down here that is, again, ostensibly not just a place where people come to work, but the place where people come to live, to be entertained and to entertain and to socialise,” he says.
Taylor Swift’s MCG shows may have grabbed the headlines, but the takeover of the Marvel Stadium precinct by waves of women wearing pink cowboy hats and feather boas for the recent run of P!nk concerts showed the potential for the space.
However, it’s likely government money will be needed for a development of that scale. In December, the AFL inked a joint venture partnership with the Allan government.
A government spokesman said the deal involved exploring redevelopment opportunities at two Docklands sites on Harbour Esplanade.
Karl Van Buuren and Josh Uljans, co-owners of Moon Dog.Credit: Jason South
The joint venture has raised some eyebrows, including those of Hatem Saleh, chief executive of the Atlantic Group, which operated hospitality venues at the Docklands Central Pier before it became the subject of a $42 million legal dispute and subsequent settlement with the state government.
“No surprises here,” he posted on LinkedIn when news of the joint venture was released. “Is this the real reason behind our sudden need to vacate Central Pier back in August 2019?”
Saleh declined to comment further.
However, the AFL is not the only organisation focused on Docklands. Next to Marvel Stadium, construction has begun on Doglands, a new venue from brewer Moon Dog, which will seat 1500 punters and includes palm trees, a volcano and a hidden karaoke room.
“We are trying to transport people. Docklands is an amazing place, but it is very inner urban, and we are trying to take people into something that they are not expecting,” Moon Dog co-founder Josh Uljans says. “It is certainly not like anything anyone has ever seen around the Docklands.”
Uljans isn’t worried by the recent closure of a string of Docklands hospitality venues, including floating nightclub Atet, cafe Off With The Ferries, gastropub The Woolshed, artisan breadhouse Mill & Bakery and Middle Eastern eatery Mama Rumaan.
Issues such as complaints about noise and safety concerns around Central Pier were factors in many of the closures, and Uljans points to Moon Dog World, the group’s brewery complete with lagoon, located in a warehouse in the back streets of Preston.
“We love to take on a bit of a challenge,” Uljans says. “In the same way our site in Preston is massively off the beaten track, it’s not in an area that is a high street, or high traffic area, we created something that is really exciting and bought something to the area that wasn’t there. We saw, effectively, a really similar opportunity [in Docklands] with the added benefit that there are around 65 events at Marvel Stadium each year.”
An artist’s render of the planned Doglands venue at Docklands.
Doglands, a 120-seat restaurant and bar, will be open seven days a week. The venue will include a 1800-square-metre function space open for Marvel Stadium game and event days and private functions.
“There’s often a tendency that people might have to be a little bit wary of something that’s not tried and true,” Uljans says. “Maybe just the right venue hasn’t been built there yet. Because we’re willing to take that on and create something that we think is going to be the destination that’s going to bring people to that area.”
Lord Mayor Sally Capp agrees hospitality is key to reinvigorating Docklands by activating vacant shopfronts.
“What needs to improve, and I think we’re really starting to see it, is that activation on a day-to-day level,” she says. “There could definitely be more cafes. If you walk along a lot of the streets in Docklands, there’s entrances into apartments or office buildings with no activity, really, happening at a ground level.”
Cafe Saluministi is a popular lunch venue.Credit: Joe Armao
Capp points to the cluster of cafes and shops around the Docklands library as one of the bright spots in the precinct, which includes Saluministi, a cafe stalwart of the area for eight years.
Cafe owner Peter Mastro calls Saluministi “the lighthouse” because “the lights are always on” in contrast to some other Docklands venues which only open three days a week.
“We’ve put a lot of soul and spirit into where we are,” he says. “On the weekend, we are driven by the locals, we built a community through COVID, we have all the dragon boat [crews] come in, so we have built a real connection there. There are still not a lot of people coming to work, it’s still a challenge there.”
Mastro says Saluministi has thrived, selling about 300 coffees a day along with its signature porchetta rolls, because of its commitment to the area, staying open through lockdowns when times were tough.
He says business is back on track, and is confident enough to open a new Saluministi shop in Collins Quarter at the other side of Docklands.
“We feel like there is a lot of potential [in Docklands], but it is still misunderstood and has a long way to go,” he says.
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