‘More seagulls than people’: Nine months after reopening, City Square is a ghost town

A couple sit in the sunshine eating their lunch on a park bench in City Square while two small children chase seagulls along the grey paving stones.

The square opposite the Town Hall reopened nine months ago, but it’s still largely deserted, with the hospitality and retail outlets underneath the Westin Hotel facing the square still vacant and boarded up.

Temporary fencing cordons off the vacant shops, and a “Retail For Lease” sign advertises them for rent as flagship opportunities with exceptional ground floor options.

Despite a “glow-up” after City Square closed for eight years while the Metro Tunnel was being built, it remains largely unoccupied.

The square now features a large canopy with a white slatted roof over the entrance to the new Town Hall Station, a large expanse of 12,000 grey pavers in the centre and metal bench seating lining the sides.

Around the station entrance Wurundjeri text is carved into the stone with an English translation underneath – Wominjeka Kirrip, Welcome Friends – and the far side includes a smoking ceremony dish developed with Wurundjeri elder Aunty Joy Wandin Murphy.

Lord Mayor Nick Reece praised the new-look square when it was unveiled, and Minister for Transport Infrastructure Gabrielle Williams described it as “a serious glow-up”.

A spokesman for the government declined to say how much the redevelopment cost and said it was built within the Metro Tunnel project’s total cost.

Longstanding features like the Burke and Wills statue, Mockridge fountain and Brunetti cafe are long gone.

The Burke and Wills statue is still locked away in council storage, and the Mockridge fountain has been replaced by a digital artwork, which features waves of digital lights that cascade down, imitating water.

The City of Melbourne manages City Square, and Reece declined to comment on why the retail outlets all remained boarded up nine months on from the square’s reopening.

A spokesman for the City of Melbourne says the square has been used to host 29 events since it was reopened, including Rising Festival and the upcoming Melbourne Fashion Week.

“City Square is ready to come alive – with nearly 10,000 commuters passing through Town Hall Station every day” the spokesman said. “The Westin owns and manages the tenancies, and we look forward to seeing those shopfronts filled and bringing more life to the space as soon as possible.”

A spokeswoman for The Westin says the retail tenancies are owned and managed by the owners of the property, TA Global, rather than the hotel.

The Malaysian-listed company did not respond to requests for comment, and Knight Frank and Ainsworth Property, which are leasing the retail tenancies, declined to comment.

Visiting City Square at peak hour on a weekday, Rory Hyde of the University of Melbourne’s faculty of architecture, building and planning found the square mainly empty.

“There’s streams of people going past at the intersection and going down into the station, and then streams of people going past on the footpath on Swanston Street, and then there’s about 12 people in the square itself,” he says. “There’s more seagulls than people.”

Hyde says there are some great things about the square, including the native plantings with gum trees that will grow up over the years, and the inclusion of Indigenous representation and symbolism.

However, Hyde says the square seems removed from the street and largely unused compared to the grassed area outside the State Library, which operates as an unofficial city square.

“The reason the protests always happen [at the State Library] is these calls for peace or truth echo off those columns and lend an air of legitimacy because of the institution behind it,” he says. “You don’t quite get that with a hotel.”

Hyde says opening up the retail tenancies could improve City Square.

“Getting the right mix in the tenancies will be of huge help and give you a reason to go there, like a bar or a little bookshop,” he says. “Maybe it can be a kind of quiet corner in the city.”

Reading a book in his lunch break, Christopher Schooler says it’s good when the revamped square is used for events like a recent Makers Market.

“It’s not much to look at,” he says. “It does what it needs to, I guess.”

Office worker Jessica Davies says she likes the square as a rare place in the city centre to have lunch in the sun.

Waiting to perform, street performer Dwayne Andrews says the changes had not been an improvement.

“It used to be beautiful,” he says. “This looks like it was created by a Soviet Brutalist.”

Andrews says that with no shade or protection in the middle of summer the square will be boiling and in winter the wind will whip through.

But on a sunny spring day, there’s still plenty of space for seagulls.

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