This western suburb could be our second CBD, but residents fear the dream is under threat

In this special series, The Age focuses on Melbourne’s western suburbs to see how life could improve in Australia’s fastest-growing region.See all 36 stories.

Roji Bhandari is a believer in Sunshine. So much so, that when she decided in 2022 to move her Nepalese food truck business into bricks and mortar, she sold her family home to purchase the building for her restaurant, Tinkune.

Bhandari, speaking to The Age from a holiday in Nepal, uses her grandmother’s recipes to serve momo dumplings, chatpate (a puffed rice dish) and masala tea, and her eatery has been a hit with the suburb’s growing Nepalese community.

She hopes to move from the outer west with her husband and two children to Sunshine when they can buy a suitable home.

“Before, people would say Sunshine is dangerous, but now it’s very popular and very different,” Bhandari says.

“I can have a full house on weekdays at 9.30pm … Every fortnight it seems there is a new business opening.”

A V/Line train pulling into Sunshine station, which will be redeveloped into a superhub.Credit: Jason South

Bhandari’s restaurant is opposite Sunshine station, and she hopes the Victorian government’s $4.1 billion Sunshine Superhub redevelopment – the first step to extending the Metro train network to Melbourne Airport and Melton – will be a boon for her and other small business owners.

The West of Melbourne Economic Development Alliance (WoMEDA) has declared in its strategic report, Western Growth: Unlocking Melbourne’s Economic Engine, that Sunshine should be Melbourne’s second CBD by 2050.

Jewel in the crown

Underpinning this is the suburb’s geographic location at the heart of the burgeoning west, located just 12 kilometres from the Melbourne CBD.

It will also sit at the junction of train lines linking regional Victoria, the new Metro Tunnel and, in the early 2030s, Melbourne Airport. Sunshine could be a natural destination for hotels, conference centres and offices.

But Brimbank City Council and community advocates fear the opportunity to transform Sunshine into a place where train travellers stop and stay is slipping through their fingers.

The Age is strengthening its focus on Melbourne’s west as part of a special series examining the positives and challenges the region faces. This week, our reporters will moderate a WoMEDA summit to discuss a vision for the western suburbs’ success. The alliance of university, industry, community and local government experts works to unlock the west’s economic potential.

The alliance is calling on the government to commit to fostering East Werribee, Footscray, Cobblebank and Sunshine as priority precincts, so that Australia’s fastest-growing region has the jobs, infrastructure, services and cultural institutions to support it.

Sunshine is seen as the jewel in the western crown: a natural transport hub with key anchors such as Sunshine Hospital and Victoria University, and with ample land ripe for development.

It is projected to have the capacity to cater for 43,000 extra residents and 30,000 new jobs by 2051, providing employment opportunities to the thousands of western residents who are forced to travel for hours each day to work outside the region.

WoMEDA chair Peter Dawkins says business and government services – professional jobs in the finance, marketing and legal sectors – could flourish in central Sunshine, as well as the visitor economy, including hotels and restaurants.

“To the extent that Melbourne needs a second CBD, it’s moving west. That’s where the huge population growth is,” Dawkins says. “To choose a place in Melbourne to be like Parramatta [Sydney’s second CBD], Sunshine is the obvious location.”

Picturing Sunshine as a future economic powerhouse requires some imagination. While central Hampshire Road bustles with shoppers and locals sipping Vietnamese coffee, modern high-rises are sparse, there are vast underused sites, many streets feel tired or unsafe and the train stations that bookend the main strip – Sunshine and particularly Albion – are rundown.

Brimbank council’s director of city futures, Kelvin Walsh, is upbeat about Sunshine’s second CBD potential. He believes the suburb will benefit from the transport projects and has plenty of developable land with a community eager for change.

But he is worried and wants clarity on when exactly the state government will deliver the Sunshine Station Masterplan – which goes beyond the rail infrastructure to promise a vibrant, greener, safer and well-connected surrounding precinct.

The superhub’s missing pieces

Construction will start on the Sunshine Superhub next year and take until 2030. The bulk of its $4.1 billion budget will be spent untangling a complex web of tracks to enable Melton and Airport Rail trains.

Sunshine station will get two new platforms for V/Line trains, an extended concourse and a new forecourt. But there is no mention of elements of the masterplan that would be a catalyst for Sunshine’s transformation: a new bus interchange, pedestrian crossings over the tracks that today cleave the area in two; safer, livelier streets, new civic plazas and green open space.

The state Labor government previously committed $143 million to the Sunshine Station Masterplan, but in this year’s budget papers, its costs and delivery timeline are listed as “tbc”, pending the procurement of the superhub track works.

Meanwhile, Sunshine’s status as a transport hub has been questioned, given V/Line passengers on the Albury line will still pass through the station, but be unable to stop or transfer there.

Albion station – arguably among the worst across Melbourne – will be rebuilt in 2027. But designs have not been released and a structure plan to revamp the dilapidated surrounds, named Albion Quarter, is yet to be completed.

“What makes me nervous is it’s a big project … and we need to keep the focus on how important it is to Melbourne’s west,” Walsh says.

Department of Transport and Planning documents from 2021 and 2022 emphasise that rail alone will not be enough to realise Sunshine’s potential, and that the state government must use all tools at its disposal to overhaul the precinct and attract private investment.

Walsh says Brimbank council has issued permits for $600 million worth of development since 2018, but construction has yet to commence on 21 of these plans. He says developers are waiting for certainty that the full masterplan will be delivered.

“If we get the infrastructure delivered in the right way, then private sector developers will have greater confidence … and our community can thrive,” Walsh says. “Do it once, do it right.”

Shefton Parker, of the Greater Sunshine Community Alliance, says the superhub works are a missed opportunity to give the area what it needs, and wants to know when the full station masterplan will be delivered.

“There’s a lot of money that’s being spent on the untangling of the rail lines – but no investment into the actual station itself,” he says.

Parker was part of a community reference group consulting with the state government about development plans for the Sunshine and Albion precincts, but the Department of Transport and Planning abruptly shut it down in June.

Shefton Parker, from the Greater Sunshine Community Alliance, wants certainty over the station precinct masterplan.Credit: Paul Jeffers

The contrast is stark with the suburbs along the Suburban Rail Loop East project. There, the state government has undertaken extensive community consultation and developed detailed plans to transform the precincts surrounding the five stations along the $34.5 billion rail line between Cheltenham and Box Hill.

“What we’re seeing again is Sunshine and the west being an afterthought rather than any significant priority for economic or social improvement,” Parker says.

A spokesman for Transport Minister Gabrielle Williams and Precincts Minister Harriet Shing says they will confirm options and timelines for the Sunshine masterplan in coming months as plans for the track works are finalised.

“Work is under way to co-ordinate the Sunshine Superhub and Sunshine Masterplan projects to deliver the best outcomes for the precinct,” the government spokesman says.

“Our vision for Sunshine is to make it the centre of Melbourne’s booming west.”

In 2023, The Age examined whether central Sunshine had the potential to be a second CBD. At the time, there were fewer than six high-rises. Since then, the only notable new developments have been a five-storey hotel and the Vietnamese Museum, which will open next year.

The transformation of the heritage-listed John Darling and Son Flour Mill into a hotel, retail and office complex, and updating Sunshine Plaza with a six-storey commercial building, have yet to be realised.

A thriving mini-city

Ross Pelligra, a third-generation property developer with the Pelligra Group, specialises in renewing industrial sites and owns about a dozen properties in or near Sunshine, including the 100-year-old flour mill next to Albion station.

Pelligra sees Sunshine’s potential as a second CBD because it has the land volume and the public infrastructure.

“We believe in Sunshine so we’ve held on,” he says.

Developer Ross Pelligra outside the historic John Darling and Son Flour Mill.Credit: Jason South

Where the suburb has struggled, he says, is in convincing landowners to sell and investors to buy.

Pelligra remains motivated to redevelop the 13,000-square-metre flour mill, but still needs permits and key market signals. He wants the Victorian government to be clear about its plan for Sunshine and to consider implementing incentives for developers and grants for employers.

“You develop with the momentum of other developers, you can’t just do it on your own. It creates interest and different types of outcomes: housing, lifestyle, commercial,” he says.

“[Investment in Sunshine] started and stopped. It just needs consistency … and if you get one or two towers going up a year, you’ll achieve that CBD feel by 2050.”

Addressing Sunshine’s social disadvantage will be essential. Census data shows the suburb has higher unemployment, lower household incomes and more renters compared to the state average.

Dawkins, WoMEDA’s chair, says creating jobs in Sunshine will help: “Economic development … when combined with deliberate strategies to address disadvantage, will play a big role in helping to solve the problem.”

Like in many parts of Melbourne, residents worry about safety. Sunshine Business Association vice-president John Girardi, who runs a human resources company, says business owners and residents are troubled by homelessness and crime, in particular retail theft and car break-ins.

“The perception … is that crime has gotten worse and police presence isn’t as strong as what it used to be,” Girardi says. “They feel less safe than five to 10 years ago.”

Nonetheless, Girardi believes Sunshine has already come a long way and is evolving into a thriving mini-city with myriad business opportunities.

Tammy Nguyen, chief executive of the Vietnamese Museum, which is set to open late next year.Credit: Jason South

Tammy Nguyen is excited to open the doors of the three-storey Vietnamese Museum – Australia’s first – late next year to tell the stories of refugees who fled after the Vietnam War.

The museum’s chief executive says locating in Sunshine makes perfect sense. It highlights the suburb’s strong multiculturalism, she says. Almost 16 per cent of Sunshine residents have Vietnamese ancestry.

Nguyen is confident that the museum, near Sunshine station, will boost the local economy by attracting visitors and tourists.

“We love the vibrancy and diversity of Sunshine,” Nguyen says. “We are really hoping to assist the business community.”

Brimbank Mayor Thuy Dang is pleased to see Sunshine getting the infrastructure attention it deserves.

“Brimbank has waited patiently for this moment for a long time, while investment flowed to other regions,” Dang says. “Sunshine is the right choice for Melbourne’s second CBD.”

The West of Melbourne Summit, presented by WoMEDA with The Age, is held on October 22-23. For details go to womeda.com.au

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