A TOWER that will act as the base to re-tell historical events connected to Glenrowan and Kelly Gang siege of 1880 will built at Lion’s Park as an all-in-one singular structure.
The Rural City of Wangaratta went out to public consultation with two design options - the first to incorporate all of the facility within one single tower, while the second was to split the facilities into two locations.
Some 75 per cent of respondents chose the single tower and the facility will contain a lower area with a viewing platform equipped with augmented reality story telling features and static displays, while the top of the tower will be at a height where people can view out over the siege area.
Council’s director of infrastructure services, Marcus Goonan, said the tower will consist of stairs on the outside that go all the way to the platform and there will be an all abilities access via a lift as well.
There are landscaping works, and connectivity works that will be carried out at the site and Mr Goonan said the height of the facility is still yet to be determined.
“There is still work to be done on the final height of the tower, but we need to make sure that we see all the elements quite clearly,” he told the Wangaratta Chronicle yesterday.
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“It will need to be a specific height where you will be able to see the siege site - a metre higher or lower could be ineffective - but it will be at a 2.5 storey height.”
Mr Goonan doesn’t expect the building of a potential new bridge near the area for the Inland Rail to be of any consequence in terms of forcing the repositioning of the tower.
“There are a couple of different proposals for Glenrowan and we are working with the Australian Rail Track Corporation (ARTC) with this,” he said.
“There’s quite of bit of room in Lions Park and our structure positioning is flexible so we can move it around to suit.”
The $4 million project has received $3.5m in funding from the Victorian Government.
Council will now ask the successful tender for the design to firm up elements and it will consult with the community about the augmented reality aspects and how the story will be told.
“The main part of it is about the story telling of the Kelly siege and we expect that to be one of those things where everyone has a little bit of a different understanding around it,” he said.
“We expect this to be a more difficult part of the project and perhaps a slow aspect but we want to make sure we get it right.”
Council is pushing hard with ARTC to assist with additional bus, car and other long vehicle parking and Mr Goonan said the two projects could marry together well.
“We’re going to end up with something that is state of the art and one of a kind within Australia,” he said.
Council is looking to finalise the design and specifications by this September with the view to complete tower’s construction by mid-2022.
Mr Goonan expressed his thanks to everyone who came along to the consultation sessions or made contact with council to share their thoughts.
“In the coming months we will come back to the community to provide an update on the storytelling aspect of the project,” he said.
