Why Chris Lucas wants to bulldoze part of Flinders Street Station

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The Melburnian of the Year has a grand plan to turn most of the station into a hospitality precinct.

Restaurateur Chris Lucas has been named Melburnian of the Year, beating out contenders including author Helen Garner and former Comedy Festival head Susan Provan.

Lucas, who owns and operates 12 restaurants in Melbourne, from lavish four-storey Maison Batard to boisterous Flinders Lane venue Chin Chin, says he aims to use the award to set out a “bold vision” for Melbourne.

He wants to demolish parts of Flinders Street Station, which he describes as “the largest, most derelict, unused building in the city”, and build over the rail yards to create a riverside precinct extending from the MCG to the Banana Alley vaults on the Yarra.

“Melbourne needs to get its mojo back,” he says. “Imagine a once-in-a-century transformation stretching from the MCG and Melbourne Park, through our arts precinct, Federation Square and the Yarra River, to a magnificently renewed Flinders Street Station all the way down to the Yarra.”

He says Flinders Street Station could be Melbourne’s Grand Central Station if it were rebuilt with the rail lines put underground, opening up the space for development.

“It’s a beautiful building on the outside, but it’s rotting away on the inside,” he says. “I’m talking about taking Flinders Street Station, maintaining the facade, dropping the building and building a new complex of hotels, restaurants, convention centre, and linking it to Jeff’s Shed [the Melbourne Convention Centre] across the road.”

He is inspired by Abu Dhabi, which is building a Guggenheim to join its Louvre gallery, and Hudson Yards in New York. He says the redevelopment could be funded by the private sector.

“I am not calling for another enormous taxpayer-funded project,” he says. “I am calling for a vision that challenges the private sector to devise a commercially viable, privately financed model for the transformation.”

Lucas says the redevelopment would be the largest urban renewal project in Australia.

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