Norwich Plaza is set for a facelift, with concept designs showing plans to reconfigure the prominent building's floorspace and exterior.
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A swag of planning application documents were tendered with the City of Ballarat detailing the partial demolition and rebuild of the Norwich Plaza building, at an estimated cost of $3.5 million.
Among some of the key proposed changes will be a reconfiguration of the buildings ground floor to demolish the existing east-west arcade and consolidate its 18 individual retail tenancies into six.
The first of the building's new anchor tenants, Betty's Burgers, has been revealed in the documents.
Under the designs, the burger franchise will occupy a corner tenancy on the building's ground floor.
The plans also propose to rebuild the building's roof, and expand its first floor retail space by 832 square-metres to increase the total amount of shops available.
It comes after the months-long demolition of the faade of the Norwich Plaza building, including the removal of the building's signature clock, which has long sat motionless.
The documents were lodged by Melbourne-based urban design firm Tract, are are currently being publicly advertised before the plans head to the council for deliberation.
The building's external reconstruction will see the removal of its awnings and cladding, much of which has already occurred, in favour of a "modern" hybrid faade and awning look.
Correspondence in the plans show the City of Ballarat required the retention of the brickwork underneath Norwich Plaza's external cladding, with plans changed to reflect the requirement.
However the designers stated the buildings original roof could not be retained due to drainage and space issues.
Included in the documents are floor plans for the building's renovation, traffic and waste management plans.
The Norwich Plaza site occupies a total area of 2452 square-metres, with plans to retain the parking scheme for the existing Bridge Mall area.
However with a proposed expansion of the site's retail space, the documents look to gain an exception to a statutory requirement of an additional 32 car spaces are required under law.
The proposal's traffic management document states "The Car Parking Demand Assessment concluded that parking demand of the proposal will likely be below the statutory parking requirement of 32 space primarily due to the occurrence of multi-purpose trips and the site's level of access to sustainable transport modes."
"Notwithstanding, the proposal will still result in some additional off-site car parking demand that needs to be accommodate by the surrounding on and off-street parking facilities."
The designers have also proposed to build a bicycle parking hoops on the roads around the site.
It comes as work continues on a council project for the Bridge Mall, reopening it to traffic and closing Grenville Street from Curtis Street to Little Bridge Street south-bound.
The project will see the south-bound lanes of Grenville Street transformed into gardens, a bike path, walkways and informal areas for play and seating.
At the bottom of Sturt Street, east-bound vehicles will continue to be able to turn left onto Grenville Street and east towards Bakery Hill via Curtis Street.
Vehicles will no longer be able to turn right from Sturt Street into Grenville Street.
Elsewhere in Bridge Mall, the council is conducting consultation on its new-look bus stop, in an effort to increase safety at the site.
The City of Ballarat has opened consultation on the project, through its MySay platform, with concept designs released in September showing more trees and footpaths, as well as dedicated bike lanes.
The existing bus shelter would be removed entirely and replaced with a new design, with more lighting and CCTV to address safety concerns.
Drop in sessions will be held on December 20, January 23, and February 1.