Building a new art gallery near Warrnambool's railway station has been mooted as an alternative to the "ill-conceived" Cannon Hill site.
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Architect Neil Holland has urged councillors to consider a look further down the train tracks with a bold idea to use the "airspace" above the car park next to the railway station for a new gallery.
It's an idea that would revitalise a "dead" area of town and provide train travellers with access to a cafe when new trains are rolled out without dining cars.
Warrnambool City Council last month voted to undertake a $100,000 business case for building a new art gallery at Cannon Hill rather than redevelop the gallery's existing site.
Mr Holland has thrown his support behind objectors, saying the Cannon Hill site was "inappropriate" and had "a lot of negatives" with the sloping nature of the site making accessibility difficult for those with disabilities.
"If you're going to start excavating there, you're going to be excavating in rock which will be quite expensive," he said.
"It is an awkward site. It would be very congested, especially during the summer period.
"It's always been open space and it should be maintained as open space.
"And to put more buildings along there, it's just totally inappropriate."
Mr Holland said a site further along Merri Street had many advantages and also offered stunning views across Lake Pertobe.
"The alternative site, if you think outside the square, is a lot more rational," he said.
Mr Holland said the site, between the railway station and Gillies Street near where the old goods shed used to be, was not opposite any homes or apartments unlike Cannon Hill.
At Cannon Hill, an art gallery would "dramatically impact upon the outlook from those existing homes and apartments", he said.
Mr Holland said the south side of Merri Street, between Kepler and Fairy streets, was a convenient central location near public transport.
"It is a quite visually unobtrusive location," he said.
"It utilises airspace in a central location and from there you still get quite good views out over Lake Pertobe - it's just more discrete.
"You maintain the car park that is there and put a new building in the airspace above the car park, and the way the levels work there, that building would be street level to Merri Street."
Mr Holland said that section of Merri Street need to be revitalised, and if there was a state-of-the-art gallery building there it would help.
Inspired by the multi-purpose nature of the new library at TAFE, he said a gallery could include in-house studios and some TAFE classes conducted there.
"Then when people come to visit the art gallery it's going to be a lot more alive and activated," Mr Holland said.
"You could see artists actually working rather than seeing static displays.
"It would be enlivened."
He said car parks nearby would be freed-up in peak times, which would be during school holidays when TAFE classes weren't running.
Mr Holland said it would be a "no-brainer" to share the car parking facilities.
"There needs to be a cafe and restaurant as part of the gallery and I thought if that was at the west end overlooking the railway station, then people waiting for buses and trains could go there and get a coffee or have something to eat," he said.
Mr Holland said that would at least partly offset the problem of not having dining cars on the new trains.
He said that as an architect he had an interest in art and design, and in the last school holidays took his family to Melbourne to visit the Heide Museum of Modern Art, Picasso exhibition at the National Art Gallery and the Van Gogh exhibition.
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