“I want to see a really vibrant space; I want to see it getting used for lots of different things; I want it to be something for everybody, for all the residents to feel like they can go there and they can do what they want to do, kick a ball with their children, walk the dog, go to an event, to Moonlight Cinema”.
Stonnington Mayor Jami Klisaris describes her vision of the ambitious project she announced last week: the creation of a $60 million ‘European-style’ plaza in Prahran, near the corner of Chapel Street and Commercial Road.
This is a plan that has been discussed for a decade; reports have been hailing it as a second Federation Square, not only due to its size (it will cover 9,000 square metres) but also because it is designed to contain nine distinctive zones including a central square with water feature, gardens, and forest and lawns at ground level. Below ground, replacing the current car park bounded by Cato, Izett, Wattle and Chatham Streets, will be a modern two-level parking centre complete with travellators, extensive security and amenities.
“When this first came to council a few years ago, I was very excited and I jumped onboard straight away, because I knew how important it would be for our community”, says Mayor Klisaris of what is the biggest project ever undertaken by the City of Stonnington.
“I guess that’s what makes it ambitious, and the fact that we’re just a small council with a very big population and we understand that we’re going to have a lot of population growth in the future”.
In fact, according to predictions, the area is looking at an increase of over 30,000 residents by 2036 (58 per cent within the Chapel Street area) – most of them young professionals who work in the city.
“We’re very well accessed by public transport, that’s why it is so desirable to live at this end of the city”, says the mayor.
“We can’t stop population from increasing, it is inevitable, our concern is how to make our residents lives more enjoyable. We’re seeing taller buildings with small apartments, less open space and fewer backyards, so what we want to provide is not just a space where you can recreate and have fun; it needs to be a space for those residents today and in the future who won’t have their own relaxing backyard. They will look at Cato Square as their space. We’re not just planning for our residents today, it’s pretty much future-focused, we’re looking 20 years down the track”.
Stonnington has the second lowest amount of public open space per capita of all Victorian councils, so Cato Square delivers on Council’s long-term plan to provide more open space for its residents.
“For the past years the council has been extremely focused in creating open space”, explains Cr Klisaris.
“We know that we can’t build really big parks because we don’t have the space to do that, so what we’ve been doing is purchasing properties when they go up for sale and turning them into small little parks and then providing connection from one big park to another. That’s why we identified Cato Square because we’ve always owned that site”.
So far, the announcement has been met with enthusiasm and excitement, a rarity when a policy is announced.
“Every single business in the immediate area has had a one-on-one consultation with our staff, which has been really fantastic, a lot of positive comments have come out of that”, she points out, obviously content with the practically non-existent backlash, during these first days of consultation.
“Stonnington residents love to be social, they love to be out and about, they attend community events, they go to our shopping strips like High Street, Chapel Street, Hawksburn Village, Glenferrie Road”, she says, explaining the positive reaction for a project that aims to bring more people out.
“Our council is very conscious about the community aspects of the project, we want it to be very connected with the community that it is serving”, she says.
“We have a lot of community events throughout the year and most of them are free, because we want to encourage people to come together, to be involved”.