This suburb is ‘centre of the universe’. Can it keep up with demand?

In a series, The Age profiles Victorian suburbs and towns to reveal how they’ve changed over the decades.See all 43 stories.

In Chinese migrant circles, there’s a term that is often uttered to describe Glen Waverley: the centre of the universe (“yu zhou zhong xin”).

And when you’re standing on Kingsway, the suburb’s main strip, it can certainly feel that way.

Within less than a kilometre there is a cinema, three major supermarkets, The Glen shopping centre, a library, specialty Chinese and Indian grocery stores, a train station, numerous apartment towers and one eatery after another.

From left: Shivani, Arjun and Vishal Kapoor have strong family ties to Glen Waverley Secondary College.Credit: Luis Enrique Ascui

This is no sleepy suburban strip. At night, it’s humming with people seeking to fill their bellies with Chinese wontons and Sri Lankan hoppers, fairy lights draped around trees guiding the way.

And as you talk to people who live and work in the area, it doesn’t take long to realise that Glen Waverley seems to have a certain pull: once you move here, you never want to leave.

Vishal Kapoor, who is Indian, migrated at age eight from Kenya with his family. Forty years on, he remains in the suburb he landed in.

Today, more than 60 per cent of Glen Waverley’s residents are born overseas. But when Kapoor started grade 3, he recalls being the only child who wasn’t white. By the end of his primary years, he had friends from Sri Lanka, China and Singapore.

“The diversity of cultures coming in has changed the dynamic. Which place would celebrate Chinese New Year, Indian Diwali and still do the Anzac march, all in the one area?”

The school run

He chuckles when he remembers his dad purchasing their family home for $74,000 in 1983, just behind Glen Waverley Primary School. Today, the median house price is more than $1.7 million.

“It was dumb luck that we ended up here, but it was the right decision.”

While Kapoor and wife Shivani couldn’t afford a large family home in the suburb, he was committed to staying. In 2008 they bought a two-bedroom unit near Wesley College, 20 minutes from Kingsway, and have lived there ever since.

He wanted his son, Arjun, now 17, to follow in his footsteps and attend Glen Waverley Secondary College, one of Victoria’s most sought-after public schools, and a big reason why property prices are so high in the zone surrounding it.

A decade’s worth of VCE results data shows the school consistently reached median scores of between 32 and 34 – above the state median of 30. Ninety-one per cent of students have a language background other than English.

“[In Asian families] education is first and foremost. What comes with that is good teachers and leaders.”

Starting at the end of the line

Many people will be familiar with Glen Waverley for being at the end of a Metro train line, one of the shortest in the network.

It is far from being a fringe suburb, but the railway ends here, somewhat abruptly because this was once the eastern border of metropolitan Melbourne.

Original plans to extend the railway to Rowville and beyond were scuppered in favour of infill housing development, which ramped up in the ’70s.

It’s a decision that has long vexed those living further east, but one that has given Glen Waverley an edge.

Waverley Historical Society president Ralph Bartlett at Glen Waverley’s Shepherds Bush Community Garden, near the Dandenong creek and valley.Credit: Joe Armao

Waverley Historical Society president Ralph Bartlett, 61, remembers when brick-veneer homes and winding suburban streets replaced the dairy farms and orchards that blanketed the hills leading down to the Dandenong Creek.

While some of these houses have been demolished and substituted for more modern “McMansions”, many residents continue to have clear views of the Dandenong Ranges.

“It was very desirable, and still is,” Bartlett says.

A residential area of Glen Waverley.Credit: Joe Armao

Glen Waverley’s importance was amplified when, in 1973, the sprawling home of the Corpus Christi Roman Catholic Seminary became the Victoria Police Academy, where the force trains its recruits.

During wet weather, before the 16-hectare site underwent extensive development, the chapel was used for exercise. Bartlett says locals nicknamed the academy “Copper’s Christi”.

Around the same time, McDonald’s set up its first Victorian venue, and only its second in Australia, at the corner of Springvale Road and High Street. It became a magnet for families across Melbourne eager to get a taste of American fast food.

From Maccas to mayor

Like many Glen Waverley teens, Monash Council Mayor Nicky Luo’s first job was at the local Maccas. At 16, she had only just moved from Shenzhen in China about a year earlier and her English was still rusty. “I was very anxious going into that job. But I was proud of myself.”

A 1973 advertisement for Victoria’s first McDonald’s which was established in Glen Waverley, published in the Waverley Gazette.Credit: Monash Public Library Service 

Luo has been a regular on Kingsway for 30 years and strolling down the street with her, it’s soon apparent that she is on a first-name basis with many of the traders.

We visit her favourite cafe, Piatella, where she orders coffee every morning after a gym session, and she points out Rock Kung, a Cantonese restaurant she has been eating at with her family since she migrated.

Like Kapoor, Luo started her new Australian life in Glen Waverley and never left.

“When I first arrived I felt it was, wow, very quiet.” But the area quickly grew on her. It was safe, friendly, and had a growing Chinese presence.

Monash Mayor Nicky Luo outside the council offices. She migrated to Australia at age 15 and landed in Glen Waverley.Credit: Joe Armao

The single mum, who works in mental health, says staying in Glen Waverley to raise her two children, aged 14 and 7, was a no-brainer.

Luo is Monash’s first mayor of Chinese heritage. As well as English, she speaks Mandarin, Cantonese and Hakka.

Kingsway originally had more clothes and gift shops, and restaurants closed early, Luo says. But by the 2000s, eateries started to dominate the strip, and late-night supper venues, the Village cinema and a karaoke bar brought nightlife to the area.

“We used to say, ‘Who needs to go to the city?’”

In more recent years, apartment blocks have started to dot Glen Waverley’s suburban skyline, including three residential towers built as part of The Glen shopping centre’s 2019 redevelopment. The tallest reaches 20 storeys.

Ming Xu, a director at the Glen Waverley branch of real estate agency Biggins & Scott, says many new migrants, particularly the Chinese, are opting for apartments on Kingsway as it evokes a modern Asian city, with dining and shopping just downstairs.

“It’s still Australia, but it’s not a huge change in lifestyle in terms of language and grocery shopping.”

The strains of success

In the past, Xu says, Chinese migrants were drawn to Glen Waverley thanks to feng shui, an ancient practice that arranges the environment to promote harmony and health. Glen Waverley was identified as the tail of the dragon, with Box Hill the belly and Doncaster the head.

But today, schools are the chief driver. Xu’s property agency finds that about two-thirds of buyers are Chinese, a third are Indian or Sri Lankan, and only a small fraction are white Australian.

Elaine and Carlos Rodriguez, with daughter Maisie, moved to Australia just two months ago. They came straight to Glen Waverley.Credit: Joe Armao

Elaine Rodriguez moved to Australia from Singapore in April with her husband, Carlos, and 14-month-old daughter Maisie. When we meet, they’ve just finished a story session at Glen Waverley Library and are about to walk back to their eighth-floor rented apartment at The Glen.

Rodriguez explains that they had considered moving to Docklands or Southbank, but settled on Glen Waverley because it had everything they needed, while still giving them the peace they wanted.

“We really like it here. The city is nice but it’s just too crowded all the time,” she says.

They, too, have heard about the schools. “If we can afford it, this definitely would be a very ideal place [to buy].”

Kapoor, who is president of the Glen Waverley Secondary College school council, welcomes the new apartment buildings, but worries about the capacity of local schools to cope with the influx of families without greater funding.

“[Our school] is the heartbeat of the community,” he says. “We can’t keep sticking portables up.”

Others, like Bartlett, worry about how unrecognisable central Glen Waverley is becoming.

“It’s a massive overdevelopment,” he says. “The great attraction of Glen Waverley was that it was open … You had plenty of sunlight and air, you weren’t walking around in shadows.”

The suburb is undergoing yet more change with the construction of one of six stations of the Labor government’s $34.5 billion first stage of the Suburban Rail Loop.

The underground railway, set to be completed by 2035, will run between Cheltenham and Box Hill. Glen Waverley residents and business owners are hopeful it will benefit the area by bringing more people in.

The state government is also overseeing planning controls around each station, and has flagged that towers of up to 25 storeys will be permitted in Glen Waverley to help accommodate a predicted 2051 population of 46,500.

In the meantime, there is parking pain.

Here, the car is king, but hundreds of parking spaces near Kingsway have been lost to construction works. Every day from lunchtime onwards, drivers are stuck doing lap after lap in search of a parking spot.

Christo Christophidis, pictured at Mocha Jo’s in 2022 before he sold the business. Credit: Simon Schluter

For Christo Christophidis, who founded cafe Mocha Jo’s in 1999 and turned it into a local institution, the parking problems were just one of several issues that led him to sell up in October.

It was a tough decision; he adores the area. But he says he couldn’t simply wait for the Suburban Rail Loop station to be completed.

“When you’re in business, the short term is what’s important,” he says. “Everyone knows Mocha Jo’s, it was the place to be. But those glory days are unfortunately gone.”

At 73, Hong Kong Dim Sum’s Kong Choi Leung is still on the tools.Credit: Joe Armao

‘It’s hard to get in’

Further along Kingsway, 73-year-old Kong Choi Leung is tossing a wok in the 15-year-old kitchen of Hong Kong Dim Sum with a grin.

He started the business with wife Shing Mui as a side hustle 24 years ago, when they made dim sums to freeze and sell from their garage.

“Asian parents, they just work,” jokes their son and business co-owner, Andrew Leung. “None of this work-life balance nonsense.”

Hong Kong Dim Sum is a family operation. From left: brothers Andrew and Phillip Leung and their parents, Shing Mui and Kong Choi Leung (holding Andrew’s son Asher, 3).Credit: Joe Armao

The space is unpretentious and when The Age visits, tables are full of diners enjoying yum cha. Others are buying from shelves of frozen dumplings.

Andrew says Kingsway is, quite simply, a centre where people who live in surrounding eastern and south-eastern suburbs converge.

He grew up in Blackburn, but as a teenager he’d meet girls from Keysborough on Kingsway for coffee dates. Or, being at the end of the train line, friends would meet at Glen Waverley station to head to CBD nightclubs before stumbling back to Kingsway for a bite afterwards.

“It’s the default. If you don’t know where to go for dinner, you just go to Kingsway.”

But things aren’t always easy here. Leung says that with so many Chinese restaurants, competition is fierce. They now have a Doncaster venue, where the rent is half that of their Kingsway restaurant.

Freezers full of dumplings to take home at Hong Kong Dim Sum.Credit: Joe Armao

And while he hopes the Suburban Rail Loop will further elevate Glen Waverley, he’s scared the current parking and traffic havoc will prompt shoppers and diners to permanently take their business elsewhere.

“It’s hard to get in and hard to get out. It’s really frustrating for people who are hungry or just trying to do a quick milk run,” he says. “You can’t be the centre of the universe if you don’t have enough parking spots.”

A spokeswoman for the Suburban Rail Loop Authority said works started in May last year and the authority was doing all it could to minimise disruption.

Victorian Labor MP for Glen Waverley John Mullahy acknowledged the parking troubles being felt by locals, but said that over the next 18 months, hundreds of new spaces would replace removed parking.

Local MP John Mullahy, pictured on Kingsway, has settled in Glen Waverley for the long term.

The state government plans to build a multi-level 500-space car park. Monash Council is also extending one of its car parks for another 500 spaces.

Mullahy only moved to Glen Waverley from Oakleigh six months ago, but is invested in its success: he too has decided he is here for the long haul. His six-year-old daughter is at the local primary school. “We made the move like the majority of constituents make the move, and that’s for the education,” he says.

‘People stay here’

Glen Waverley Traders Association vice-president Craig Lane has done business on Kingsway for 33 years. He started with a hair salon, and now runs three restaurants – Steak Ministry, Paradise Road and Elephant Corridor – with a fourth on the way.

He says that while other eat streets of Melbourne are known for one particular type of cuisine, Kingsway is a true melting pot.

One day you might find yourself inside a quirky seven-storey food complex, the King’s Centre, devoted to Asian fare. The next, you might head for a pint and a parma at the Waverley RSL, a branch that started in 1950 and is adored by locals for fostering community spirit.

“Everyone lives in peace,” Lane says. “You can come to Glen Waverley for a month and go to a different restaurant every single night.”

Jordan Harrick, owner of Black Flat Coffee Brewers, grew up in Glen Waverley and wants the same for her baby.Credit: Joe Armao

Jordan Harrick has been bringing specialty coffee to her home suburb for 10 years. She set up Black Flat Coffee Brewers at age 22, and has found success as a go-to for rail commuters as well as local workers and residents.

The venue is tiny – it has four stools inside and a window espresso bar – but is at the base of an apartment tower right by the train station on Kingsway.

Harrick is passionate about Glen Waverley. Her cafe’s name, Black Flat, is even a nod to what European settlers originally called the suburb due to its rich agricultural soil.

Harrick is part Chinese and Malaysian, grew up in Glen Waverley and met her husband at the public high school.

She fondly remembers wasting time at The Glen, sipping on Happy Cup bubble tea and scarfing down food with her family at Imperial Kingdom. One of her favourite lunch spots, Tang, sells $7 bowls of noodles.

Her family often joked about the suburb being the centre of the universe because it was buzzing day and night.

“I haven’t found a suburb that has this much energy all through the week and still feels really safe and family-friendly,” she says. “People stay here a long time.”

Despite its ongoing transformation, he refers to it Vishal Kapoor still refers to Glen Waverley as his village.

He still catches up for dinner once a month with his grade 3 friends. Like him, they couldn’t bring themselves to leave the area. And why would they?

“If you said to me where could I move to that ticks the boxes of education, safety, culture, food and entertainment, it’s here.”

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