Could a Fed Square vision create a beating heart in the city?

Geelong doesn’t have a true open space in the heart of the city for the community to gather. How a redeveloped Market Square could fit that vision?

State government planning documents are designed to encourage a redevelopment at Market Square. Picture: Mark Wilson

Residential apartments, lifestyle and commercial spaces above key retail areas, and punching through old streets as modern ground floor arcades could become the future shape of Market Square in Geelong.

From the original town square where farmers once sold livestock and produce, the city block encompassing Moorabool, Malop, Yarra and Little Malop streets has become the hottest property in central Geelong.

The site’s land value could be at least $85m, based on several recent landmark CBD sales, and easily more than $100m given the scale and potential upside redevelopment holds for the site.

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Property records show the convention centre site on Geelong’s waterfront sold for more than $57m. But Market Square’s land size alone is 1.6 times larger.

But it’s far more important for the CBD, given its central position, leading Geelong commercial agent Michael De Stefano said.

“Four street frontages on a city block, its location in terms of the commercial area, its proximity to the water, to the gardens, to the train station, is there a more central location in Geelong? I don’t reckon there is,” the Gartland director said.

The eastern end of Market Square including the multi-level car park could provide the best opportunity to build a high-rise building up to 42m. Picture: Mark Wilson

Several arms of government are already pulling levers in their control to encourage the owners to redevelop the circa-1985 shopping mall.
The state government increased the development scope available on the site in the Central Geelong Framework Plan, while Geelong’s council called for ideas to create a masterplan for the site, a key requirement before any planning applications can be approved.

Market Square carries the Activity Centre zoning, a broad planning policy that’s driven billions of investment dollars into CBD redevelopments.

While there are heritage protections for the CML Building, including the Austin clock, the Block Building and Solomons Building, increased building heights above Market Square and Westfield allow slender towers between 42m and 60m.

A mixed use development was the best way to activate all four street frontages at Market Square and draw people in to the precinct. Picture: Mark Wilson

Mr De Stefano said a redevelopment also offered the opportunity to create a city heart and a green space in the CBD like Melbourne’s Federation Square.

“What would be really important is that we get activation on all four street frontages because that opens up opportunities and amenity and (foot) traffic flow through to Little Malop, Malop, Yarra and Moorabool streets,” he said.

“It’s a key site and something we also don’t have really in a central location, in the city that’s kind of the heart as well as some sort of element where there’s a green space or a community gathering space similar to Fed Square.

“A bit of a city heart, there is no inner-city green space that would create that kind of atmosphere in the city.

“A mixed use site gets people moving there – to create work, living, retail and particularly food is the thing that will create a real vibrant heart smack, bang in the CBD.”

Apartment construction has ramped up in central Geelong in recent years and has met with significant demand, with apartments outselling houses this year as apartment prices climbed nearly 40 per cent in the past three years, PropTrack data shows.

While the $250m mixed use development Cunningham Place is an entirely new building proposed at 35 Corio St, Geelong, it includes activated strips along each street frontage, including retail and hospitality.

PropTrack senior economist Paul Ryan said putting the residential right on top of the shops made sense.

“That’s part of gentrification that changes the feel of a city – just having more people around has all these kind of agglomeration benefits,” he said.

“There’s more people there, there’s people coming in to see people and there’s more unique stores in particular that can survive when there’s that kind of density of people.”

Mr De Stefano said his family has long connections to the CBD when it was largely strip shopping and Moorabool St would “pump”, before Market Square and Westfield created a vacuum drawing people to shop within the big centres.

The loading bay on Market Square mall was built over a street next to the heritage-listed Block building: Mark Wilson

A covered walkway linking Malop St and Dennys Place (Lt Malop St restaurant precinct) is an example of how parts of Market Square could become activated, including new retail and food opportunities. Picture: Mark Wilson

The framework plan charts a course to unpick past mistakes, speaking of transforming Market Square (and Westfield) into vibrant, open-to-the-air retail environments through improved connectivity, active street frontages and a greater diversity of uses.

It states Market Square can have a thriving laneway culture, given the success of Little Malop Street’s west end precinct.

This could be achieved by punching through long-closed laneways as modern arcades for food and retail, such as the old Jacob St which ran roughly between the CML Building and the loading bay in the mall, directly opposite Rock O’Cashel Lane.

A walkway through a building connecting Malop St to Dennys Place and Lt Malop St’s west end precinct offers a blueprint to open more spaces.

Originally published as Could a Fed Square vision create a beating heart in the city?