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Bookworms of Melbourne, assemble – City Library is about to get a serious upgrade. The City of Melbourne has just approved plans to relocate City Library from its current Flinders Lane digs to City Village on Bourke Street, with around $13 million expected to be invested in creating a new purpose-built library over the next two years.
The proposed new library will stretch across more than 1,200 square metres and three floors of the redeveloped City Village, transforming the historic former Commonwealth Bank Building into a modern civic hub. The move will also give the library some much-needed room to grow, with the current lease due to expire in June 2028.
According to the City of Melbourne, the library is only one piece of the puzzle. The redevelopment is also expected to open up the upper levels of City Village for community use in the years ahead, with plans for new meeting spaces, family health services and a revamped City Gallery. The library relocation is proposed to be funded and delivered in 2027–28, meaning Melburnians will have to wait a little while before they can settle into their shiny new literary HQ. But from what we can tell, it will be a pretty special new addition to the city.
Lord Mayor Nick Reece says the project will create “one of the most important new civic buildings in our city for more than a decade”, while Community, Health and City Services portfolio head Councillor Gladys Liu says the new library will provide a bigger, long-term home for reading and learning, alongside meeting spaces and family health services.
And with Melbourne’s CBD continuing to grow, the council says the extra community infrastructure is increasingly important.
“As Australia’s most densely populated suburb, Melbourne’s CBD needs community infrastructure that keeps pace with its growth,” Infrastructure portfolio deputy head Councillor Rafael Camillo said.
The relocation forms part of the City of Melbourne’s much bigger Civic Precinct Renewal Project, a long-term plan to breathe new life into City Village as well as Council House 1 and Council House 2 (CH1 and CH2). Together, the three buildings currently accommodate more than 1,100 council staff – and keeping the ageing buildings ticking over costs more than $5 million every year. Under the broader renewal plans, CH1 would undergo a major transformation, and improvements to CH2 would help deliver 7,000 square metres of new community space alongside more modern workplaces for council staff.
For now, though, attention is firmly on City Library. Councillors approved the relocation at the August 25 council meeting, alongside $1.9 million to develop detailed plans for the wider civic precinct project.
You can find out more about the plans for the project over here.
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