The unassuming western suburb that could become Melbourne’s second CBD

Melbourne’s CBD is bursting at the seams. Here is where its next cities could beSee all 6 stories.

Steve Tabban can remember the days when mention of his home suburb would inevitably bring up a frustrating, derogatory nickname: “Scum-shine”.

But today, as the winds of change make their way through Sunshine, the 38-year-old hears it less and less.

Tabban, vice president of the Sunshine Business Association who has Arab ancestry, says the western suburb is becoming increasingly vibrant, clean and safe, while maintaining its character of multiculturalism and inclusivity.

Sunshine Business Association president Vu Du and vice president Steve Tabban.Credit: Chris Hopkins

“I’ve seen it change dramatically; Sunshine has taken a massive leap,” he says. “When I was a boy, some of it was still paddock. I’ve seen it go from full of very old-school Californian bungalows to having two shopping centres and a town centre.”

A buzzing centre

With a $143 million revamp funded by Brimbank Council, Sunshine’s main street of Hampshire Road went from being a tired retail strip to a lively hub with wide, modern walkways, cycle paths and greenery, overlooked by fresh municipal offices. On sunny afternoons, locals gather outside to sip on Vietnamese coffee and lunch on banh mi; Ethiopian, Indian and Persian eateries also dot the area.

“Good cafes are popping up and bigger brands are opening stores,” Tabban says.

At his real estate business, Tabban is seeing more young couples moving into Sunshine after being priced out of suburbs like Yarraville or Brunswick.

So, could the changing face of Sunshine make it a candidate for a Melbourne second central business district?

In the Second CBD series, The Age is exploring three of metropolitan Melbourne’s best options for secondary CBDs – Clayton, Box Hill and Sunshine – decades after planners started plotting how to decentralise the city.

Selected in consultation with experts, these locations are middle suburbs accessible to populous outer and inner parts of Melbourne, and sites of major transport infrastructure projects. They show promising signs of development and have been previously identified for their growth potential.

Of the three, Sunshine requires the most effort and imagination: it has little medium-density development and limited job options for highly skilled workers. Tired roads are crammed with traffic or unfriendly to walkers and cyclists, and the area still has high levels of disadvantage.

However, elevating this suburb to mini-CBD status would be transformative for the area and the greater western metropolitan region.

Brimbank City Council Mayor Bruce Lancashire is hopeful that Sunshine will ultimately become a – if not the – second city for Melbourne.

Brimbank Mayor Bruce Lancashire sits on Hampshire Road, with the council offices in the background.Credit: Chris Hopkins

“The west has traditionally been left behind in terms of the growth of Melbourne. You’ve had a situation where it’s splurged out to the east … but this lopsided growth has long been recognised as bad planning,” he says.

“We have this vast area of land out in the west, which lends itself to a lot of opportunity. The government is now saying we need to rebalance things.

“While suburbia has been growing out like onion rings into Melton and Wyndham, Sunshine has gone from being the fringe of Melbourne to the centre of the west.”

Capital of the west

Local and state governments have a unified goal to turn Sunshine into the capital of Melbourne’s booming west.

At the heart of this is a plan to turn Sunshine into a transport “super-hub”, with $10 billion in funding committed by the Victorian and Commonwealth governments.

Following the expected completion of the airport rail in 2029, Sunshine station will be the link between Melbourne Airport and the rest of metropolitan Melbourne, as well as parts of regional Victoria. It would also eventually benefit from being a stop on the Suburban Rail Loop if the western and northern sections are ever funded.

The community was disappointed last year when the Airport Rail business case confirmed the project was being watered down to upgrade rather than redevelop Sunshine station to avoid significant extra costs.

John Hedditch, a former Brimbank mayor and a co-founder of the Greater Sunshine Community Alliance, says it’s a mistake to not elevate the rail line that cuts through the suburb to create better local connections.

“In my view, it doesn’t accommodate a future vision to get Sunshine moving as a secondary city,” he says. “Developers need to see that people can get around.”

The train line that runs through Sunshine.Credit: Chris Hopkins

However, the Department of Transport and Planning released a masterplan for the precinct surrounding the station in October which, with $143 million in funding, looks to improve the bus interchange, create more public open space, green the area and build more pedestrian and cycling paths.

Sunshine has a busy bus interchange – important in the west as it is serviced by far fewer train and tram lines than the east – however this mode of transport is notoriously unreliable. Hedditch says improving it will be crucial for making Sunshine a more attractive place to work and live.

The five-storey commercial building that houses VicRoads.Credit: Chris Hopkins

With institutions including the Victoria University campus, the recently upgraded Sunshine Hospital and courts, Hedditch says the suburb has “the building blocks to make a really fabulous capital city”.

Government offices for VicRoads, EPA, NDIS and Rail Services Victoria also recently moved in, creating more opportunities for skilled workers.

Big ambitions for development

Outside the Hampshire Road area, much of Sunshine remains flat and gritty, with industrial warehouses, single-storey homes and fewer trees.

There are, however, early signs of development. The owners of Sunshine Plaza plan to overhaul the worn shopping centre and build six storeys of offices above retail space, while the Pelligra Group plans to develop the heritage-listed John Darling Flour Mill into a hotel and office complex.

The John Darling Flour Mill, next to Albion station, will be redeveloped by Pelligra Group.Credit: Chris Hopkins

There are only two large apartment buildings so far – nine and five storeys tall, both on Hampshire Road – but Brimbank Council city development director Kelvin Walsh is confident more will follow.

The council wants to attract $8 billion of investment in Sunshine over the next three decades, and create up to 50,000 new jobs, partly to ensure the airport rail doesn’t just funnel tourists and workers to other areas, but cements the suburb as a destination in its own right.

And with so much land earmarked for development, Walsh says the private sector is showing increased interest in setting up major residential and commercial projects in the area.

“The yields that developers have traditionally been able to get in the east was always higher,” he says. “Now the east is full, it’s really Sunshine’s time.”

The state government has also announced plans to rebuild Albion station, which sits on the northern end of central Sunshine, where large surrounding blocks are ripe for transformation.

“We are unique in that we have Sunshine and Albion stations at the two ends of the Sunshine area and that’s what you would expect of a really mature CBD,” Walsh says.

There are big ambitions. Walsh hopes that parkland, where a landfill once was, will become Sunshine’s version of the Botanic Gardens, or New York City’s Central Park.

Need for change

Deputy Premier Jacinta Allan says the state government is actively driving Sunshine’s development. “We’re not the sort of government that wants to sit back and just watch it happen.”

In 2021, the Dropping off the Edge report showed that Sunshine was among the most disadvantaged suburbs in Victoria. It performed worst on indicators including income level, housing stress, low-skilled work, education and prison admissions.

Tabban hopes that generational disadvantage will shift with continued investment in better jobs and education.

“The quality of schools in our area needs to increase. I know people who have a business here and after having a child, they’ll rent near a school in the south-east,” he says.

Julie Tran outside her restaurant, Thuan An, on Hampshire Road.Credit: Wayne Taylor

Julie Tran, who owns restaurant Thuan An, says while central Sunshine is becoming safer, there are ongoing troubles and more must be done to support people with drug and mental health issues.

Still, she welcomes the buzz that has come from Sunshine’s potential being highlighted. “It’s been awesome, it feels like a little city and a lot of people want to live here.”

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