Car park becoming supermarket

By James Manton

The company that owns and operates Harbour Town has applied to transform part of the eastern car park into a supermarket, food and retail area.

Ashe Morgan made its initial application to the City of Melbourne in December 2015. However the application has been updated twice since, with the most recent being received on September 26 this year.

The cost of the development will be around $38.5 million.

The initial application proposed that the ground floor of the car park and mezzanine above become a single floor with the supermarket covering about half of the available space.

A sizeable fish market was to have been built into the renovated car park, however this plan has been scrapped and will be replaced with “individual specialty retailers and three food and beverage tenancies”.

A fresh food section will occupy the north-west corner next to the supermarket, and temporary plant nurseries will line both the northern and eastern outside walls.

The supermarket will take up about 4000 sqm, while retail will occupy 2698 sqm and the nursery will take 2825 sqm.

Because the ground floor will be renovated, the car park will be reduced by 131 parking spaces, although the initial 2015 application did state that the car park was “underutilised”.

A loading dock will also be built into the south-east corner of the building on Little Docklands Drive to provide docking for the supermarket and market hall.

Floors two to six of the car park will be extended about 14.9 metres north to provide more parking spaces.

A handful of retail shops will also be constructed on the western side of Market Lane as part of these plans.