Lonsdale St mall idea ‘is fantasy’

By Shaun Inguanzo
AN IDEA to convert central Dandenong into a large undercover shopping mall has been dismissed as horrendous by council officers.
Former City of Berwick mayor Syd Pargeter this week said the State Government’s $197 million funding injection into central Dandenong could fail to ‘go far enough’ to attract people to the city.
Drawing on an article he wrote in 1994 in which he urged the then City of Dandenong to revitalise Lonsdale Street, Mr Pargeter this week said the council should abolish all traffic and convert the street into a large shopping mall.
Mr Pargeter said the plan could be achieved by building ring roads around the city centre to totally divert traffic.
“If Dandenong is going to survive, it needs ring roads and all the traffic out of it, and a roof over Clow Street to the town hall,” he said.
“It will make Dandenong a people-friendly place.
“Then you raise a lot of money by selling or leasing the present bitumenised 200 foot-wide Lonsdale Street from Clow Street to the town hall.”
But Greater Dandenong CEO Carl Wulff said the idea was from ‘dreamland’ and not the direction Dandenong was aiming at for the future.
“This idea would be bigger than Chadstone (shopping centre) and we can not commercially support that,” he said.
“It wouldn’t be viable. In fact, I think it would actually be a backward step.”
Mr Wulff said Dandenong was focusing on revitalising street retail rather than ‘big box’ shopping malls.
He said projects such as the Dandenong Southern Bypass would relieve Lonsdale Street of large trucks, but the council did not want to get rid of traffic altogether.
“A lot of shopping malls have been putting traffic back in because they’ve found there is no 24-hour life about the place,” Mr Wulff said.
“The idea is just fantasy stuff. We’re talking mega-dollars without the commercial viability being considered.”