The plan to turn Melbourne’s car parks into public spaces

Image: Bates Smart

A top Melbourne architectural firm hopes to transform CBD car parks into recreation facilities, artist studios, public housing and other public spaces for community use.

The push to turn mulit-storey car parks into community spaces began when architects discovered car parking in Melbourne accounts for 450 hectares of CBD land, which is the equivalent of one and a half times the size of New York’s Central Park.

Director of Bates Smart, Julian Anderson, says with modes in transport changing, and the construction of the Metro Tunnel, now is the time to transition away from multi-storey mega carparking.

“Car parking is also the third largest land use in Central Melbourne behind commercial property and residential property,” he told Ross and Russel.

“Space for community use actually ranks last, and represents less than one fifth of the total land use by area in the city of Melbourne.

“We’re talking to the City of Melbourne about how we might realise this proposition.”

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