Melbourne has one less slab of grey paving and one more patch of lawn, thanks to a made-over ACCA forecourt.
The City of Melbourne has converted more than 900 square metres of paving outside the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art into landscaped public grounds. Where a sandy, hard-surfaced forecourt used to sit, there are now native trees and wildflowers, fresh lawn, spots to sit, a mural and new lighting, all opened up for anyone to wander into.
You’ll find the new pocket on the corner of Sturt and Grant streets, right on the doorstep of one of the city’s busiest arts venues. It’s the freshest green space to land in Southbank since the Dodds Street Linear Park, in a suburb where breathing room has long been scarce. For workers, gallery-goers and locals, it’s somewhere to sit down for five minutes rather than cut across another stretch of pavement.
ACCA forecourt green space
- What: New public green space on the ACCA forecourt
- Where: Corner of Sturt and Grant streets, Southbank
- Opened: 17 September
- Entry: Free
Stay up to date with what’s happening in and around Melbourne here.
View this post on Instagram
The revamp is one slice of the council’s plan to grow Melbourne into a garden city, adding parkland in a neighbourhood that already ranks as its most densely packed and keeps getting busier. Swapping concrete for greenery is also meant to pull a little heat out of a part of town that soaks up plenty of it.
Cash for the work came through the Victorian government’s Better Parks and Playgrounds Program and its Community Support Fund. The forecourt now joins wrapped-up projects such as Boyd Park and the Dodds Street Linear Park, while a bigger overhaul of Southbank Boulevard rolls on nearby.
And the council isn’t done with Southbank yet. City Road Undercroft Park is on the cards, alongside expansions of the Miles and Dodds Street Reserve and the Normanby Road Reserve, as it keeps nibbling away at the suburb’s long-running shortage of open space.
For more information, head here.
