The Melbourne Arts Precinct Transformation will deliver significant upgrades to Arts Centre Melbourne’s Theatres Building, alongside the The Fox: NGV Contemporary – a new gallery dedicated to contemporary art and design, and a new 18,000 square metre urban garden.

Arts Centre Melbourne’s upgrades, the first major works on the Theatres Building in 40 years, will introduce a new function space and studio, an expanded Loading Dock, two new dining outlets and will refurbish the heritage State Theatre, making it more accessible and bringing it up to contemporary standards.

As part of the Early Works for Arts Centre Melbourne’s upgrades, Fredon were engaged to design and construct a new 11kV HV client-side switch room and integrate new feeders into the existing infrastructure without any day to day business disruptions. This involved:

• Installation of 3 x Schneider SM6 11kV MSBs
• Installation, Termination, Testing and Commissioning of the HV earthing system and cables
• CitiPower Integration
• Installation of 4 x 240mm 11kV CU Cables 180m through the existing building
• Fire rating and certification
• VLF Testing, Protection Relay Testing and Commissioning

The Fredon team had to work within a live brownfield environment to install the new HV cables and switchgear. This created a higher level of safety complexity that Fredon executed without incident.

The Early Works package was completed in November 2023.

The team received a Commendation for Industrial Small projects category at the NECA VIC 2024 awards.