Docklands
Once an industrial wasteland at the western end of the city, abandoned in the wake of containerisation which made the traditional shipping wharves and terminals of the world's ports obsolete, Melbourne's Docklands have been given a new lease of life as a residential and recreational area in recent years.Go there
The whole area was bulldozed and redeveloped as a trendy new district. Historic wharves are now intermingled with new marinas. The district's unique urban art, new visual perspectives of the city and Yarra River, its restaurants, stylish bars and cafes and the Docklands sports arena are accessed by walkways lead from the western end of the city block, in the vicinity of South Cross Station, which is now the transport hub for visitors moving into, out of and around Melbourne and its outlying regions.
Contemporary Docklands is the product of an ongoing urban renewal project to extend the area of the Melbourne CBD (excluding Southbank and St Kilda Road) by over a third when completed around 2015. It is now home to several of Melbourne's modern landmarks, including Etihad Stadium, Southern Cross Station and the Melbourne Star Ferris wheel.
Location: west of Spencer St, city. Docklands occupies an area adjacent to the Melbourne CBD. It is bounded by Spencer Street, Wurundjeri Way and the Charles Grimes Bridge to the east, CityLink to the west and Lorimer Street across the Yarra to the south and is a primarily waterfront area centred around the banks of the Yarra River.
Getting There: On foot, via walkways at the northern suburban end of Southern Cross Station in Spencer Street, or La Trobe St to Harbour Esp.
By tram: the free City Circle tram service includes Docklands on its itinerary. Otherwise take the Docklands tram which runs along Bourke Street through the city centre.
By train: Take any suburban train to Southern Cross station. The station exits at the northern end of Southern Cross station are at the entrance to Docklands.
Docklands Precincts >>
Docklands Stadium (also known by its former sponsored names of Colonial Stadium, Telstra Dome and its current sponsorship name of Etihad Stadium) is a multi-purpose sports and entertainment stadium in the Docklands precinct of Melbourne. Construction started in October 1997 under the working name, "Victoria Stadium" and was completed in 2000 at a cost of A$460 million.
Originally built as a headquarters for the Australian Football League and as a replacement for Waverley Park, the stadium is primarily used for Australian rules football. As part of the construction deal, the Australian Football League assume ownership of the ground in 2025. Headquartered beside the stadium is Seven Network's digital broadcast centre.
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When it opened in 2004, Central City Studios (Dockland Studios) became Melbourne's largest film and television studio complex. The site is located approximately 1.5 km north west of the Central Business District. It has an area of 60,000 square metres and currently consists of five film and television sound stages. The first major contract for the new studios was the American film Ghost Rider in 2005; with a budget of nearly $120 million, at the time it was the biggest feature film to be made in Victoria and features scenes involving Melbourne landmarks. Since then the studios have created numerous international productions.
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The 100 or so prestige cars on display, which are valued in excess of $15 million, were all donated by businessman Lindsay Fox. The man obviously has impeccable taste - there's not a dud among them (though there are plenty of top names missing). They are the creme de la creme of motoring, exquisite examples of the Bentley, Ferrari, Jaguar, Porsche, Mercedes Benz and Rolls Royce. The collection is housed in the historic Queen s Warehouse building located in the Melbourne s Docklands precinct. The Fox Classic Car Collection was collected over a 30-year period by trucking businessman Lindsay Fox, and contains vehicles previously owned by Ringo Starr, Bing Crosby and Bob Jane to name a few.
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Southern Cross Railway Station evolved out of the redevelopment of Spencer Street Station. It turned the site into an efficient transport interchange, allowing connections between suburban, intrastate and interstate trains, local and airport buses, taxis and trams. Over 15 million passengers pass through the station annually, so it was important that its design allow for large number of passengers to move easily and quickly through the terminal with unimpeded sightlines and pathways. Completed in 2006, this extensive makeover was doubly necessary as the station is sited between Melbourne's CBD grid and the recently regenerated Docklands precinct. The design sought to connect these traditionally disparate urban realms, by providing a seamless interface between the two.
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Before the foundation of Melbourne, Docklands was a wetlands area consisting of a large salt lake and a giant swamp (known as West Melbourne Swamp) at the mouth of the Moonee Ponds Creek. It was one of the open hunting grounds of the Wurundjeri people, who created middens around the edges of the lake. At Melbourne's foundation, John Batman set up his home on Batman's Hill at Docklands, marking the westernmost point of the settlement. However, the rest of the area remained largely unused for decades. The advent of rail infrastructure in the late 1860s saw the City's industry gradually expand into the area.
The earliest extensive plans to develop the area was in the 1870s, when a plan was prepared to extend the Hoddle Grid westward, following the curve of the Yarra River and effectively doubling its size. The plan proposed several gridlike blocks with an ornamental public garden and lake in the shape of the United Kingdom, occupying the site of the salt lake. However, expansion of the grid westward was abandoned in favour of a northward extension.
A major engineering project began in the 1880s to reroute the course of the Yarra River, which resulted in the widening of the river for shipping and the creation of a new Victoria Dock (the name was previously used by one of the docks at Queensbridge as early as the 1850s). The dock was lined with wharves and light industry grew around the nearby western rail yards of Spencer Street railway station (now Southern Cross railway station), which were used for freighting the goods inland. From the 1880s, the former swamp west of Melbourne became heavily used as a dock, with an extensive network of wharves, heavy rail infrastructure and light industry. During the wars, Victoria Dock was used as the main port for naval vessels and most of the Victorian troops returned from both wars to the docks.
By the 1920s, with shipping moved from the Yarra turning basin at Queensbridge, Victoria Dock and the surrounding port had become Melbourne's busiest. With the introduction of containerisation of Victoria s shipping industry in the 1950s and 60s, the docks along the Yarra River, east of the modern Bolte Bridge, and within Victoria Harbour immediately to the west of the Central Business District, became inadequate for the new container ships. The creation of Appleton Dock and Swanston Dock in an area west of the Moonee Ponds Creek, now known as West Melbourne, closer to the mouth of the Yarra, became the focus of container shipping, effectively rendering redundant a vast amount of vacant inner-city land to the immediate west of Melbourne's CBD.
Following the containerisation of shipping traffic, the docklands fell into disuse and by the 1990s was virtually abandoned, becoming notable for an underground rave dance scene, a dance culture which survives through popular organised events held at Docklands Stadium. A handful of significant buildings were retained after redevelopment, generally due to their association with the area's industrial and maritime history. Most of these heritage buildings are intended for adaptive reuse and integrated with new facilities.
