A monument to ill-fated explorers Burke and Wills will be put in storage for five years to make way for Melbourne Metro Tunnel construction at City Square.
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The removal of the statue will continue a long public controversy about where it should be placed.
The memorial is the oldest and most historically significant piece of public art in Melbourne.
It was unveiled in 1865, just a few years after the adventurers Robert O'Hara Burke and William John Wills died during their journey through Australia's desert centre.
The memorial has already been relocated four times.
It's been moved due to tram works, CityLink construction and then was disastrously shifted underneath a waterfall in City Square, where the chlorinated water reportedly cause the bronze statue to corrode.
It has been in its current position, also in City Square, on the corner of Collins and Swanston Street since 1994 – though plenty of people remain unhappy about it.
The Burke and Wills Historical Society say the west-facing location is "ridiculous" and "it appears to have been simply dropped there as an afterthought".
"[Sculptor] Charles Summers went to great lengths in his design and positioning of the iconic statue with its height giving a skyline view reflecting its presence and stature," the society said in a submission to council.
"It was never designed to be locked into a modern city streetscape and be viewed against a backdrop of tall, high-rise buildings with unsympathetic facades with viewing perspectives defying all contemplative public viewing."
The historical society wants the statue relocated to the grounds of the Royal Society of Victoria opposite Carlton Gardens.
It is the location where Burke and Wills' expedition first met in August 1860 and the place that the explorer's remains lay before their state funeral in 1863.
The National Trust also supports this relocation plan, noting that 86,000 Melburnians were reported to have filed past the explorers' bodies in the mourning hall of the Royal Society of Victoria.
But the City of Melbourne has come to the conclusion that it would be better to use the Metro construction works as an opportunity to restore the statue, which has been the victim of repeated vandalism, after receiving advice from an advisory committee made up of many public art experts.
Melbourne lord mayor Robert Doyle described the statue as "probably the one most emblematic of the city".
"The Metro Tunnel works in City Square will give us a chance to conserve this most important work and we will be taking that opportunity while it needs to be dismantled," Cr Doyle said.
"It has been moved four times and, in a modern irony, the last time was to make way for the construction of Parliament Station.
"This time it's for the new CBD South station."
If the plan is approved by councillors next week it will be transferred to a secure storage facility and will undergo restorative works valued at $30,000.
It will be returned to its current location in about 2022.
The statue of Burke and Wills has been a feature of Melbourne since 1865. Photo: Cathryn Tremain
Burke and Wills were the first European explorers to explore inland Australia and cross to the Gulf of Carpentaria.
They died on their return journey at Cooper's Creek, at a camp which had been abandoned hours earlier.
Only one person, Irish soldier John King, crossed the continent with the expedition and returned alive to Melbourne after he was helped by Aboriginal people.
