Douglas Street Streetscape Upgrade Project

Project Overview

The Douglas Street Streetscape Upgrade in Noble Park aims to complement business activity and visitor attraction to Noble Park Activity centre while building on the centre’s sense of community spirit and much-loved village character. The project will see the revitalisation of Douglas Street in the heart of the activity centre.
Forming the central spine of business activity; Douglas Street is a traditional pedestrian friendly main street shopping precinct and is the beating heart of Noble Park.  The project area extends from Buckley Street (west end) to Stuart Street (east end) and also incorporates the T intersections of Leonard Avenue, the new Link Road and Stuart Street which intersect with Douglas Street. 

The key objectives of project are to:

• reinforce Douglas Street as a pedestrian priority shopping street by establishing strong visual and physical connections along the streetscape between Heatherton Road, Noble Park Station and Stuart Street at the eastern end.
• reinforce the village atmosphere of the activity centre with the introduction of more landscaping and avenue trees that act as a catalyst place making project for economic opportunities, such as stimulating business expansion and the uptake of outdoor dining by existing food premises to improve street activation.
• introduce a leafy street tree canopy to strengthen the visual appearance of the main street. 
• introduce threshold crossing treatments at the T intersections which meet with Douglas Street.  This includes strongly reinforcing the pedestrian crossings with defined paving and extending out the pavement kerb lines to create widened .
• outstands to allow for trees, landscaping and seating.  These widened path and landscaped areas will greatly assist in strengthening and establishing a consistent design approach and visual appearance along the Douglas Street shopping strip.
• provide seating that contributes to supporting the social role of the street for informal gathering.
• incorporate traffic management issues into the design process and outcomes. 
• incorporate and provide for the provision of car parking spaces, with the objective of utilising the existing layout and numbers and addressing where required parking in response to traffic management issues.  
• provide direction for future footpath treatments, street furniture, street lighting and ensure that key issues such as lighting and lux levels, safety, parking, vandalism, amenity and maintenance are considered in the design and management of the streetscape.
• To provide a staged approach to the construction of the project that allows for implementation over a period of time. 

What will the streetscape works include?

• Site preparation including demolition
• Crushed rock preparation and compaction
• Asphalting and kerb works
• Road and threshold treatments    
• Reinstatement and line marking of car parking bays
• Tree pits
• Additional landscaping and planting of trees

When will construction occur?

Preparation works on Douglas Street will commence the week of 17 May 2021. Completion of construction is expected by the end of July 2021, weather permitting.  Works will generally occur between 7am and 3.30pm, Monday to Friday.

How is this project being funded?

This project has been partially funded by the Victorian Government through the Suburban Revitalisation Program to the value of $310,000 and through Council’s capital improvement program subject to budget approval.