Our Story
Prahran Square – Your Square
Prahran Square is a 10,000 square metre urban parkland above a 500-bay underground car park. It is the City of Stonnington's transformation of the old Cato Street car park into a dynamic and inviting public space.
Prahran Square celebrates community, arts and culture, playing host to an array of events, live performances and showcasing works by local artists.
“Prahran Square - a leading international example of innovative public realm in a high-density urban context. Balancing open space, facilities & traffic.”
Place Vision
Prahran Square was developed to actively build on City of Stonnington’s civic and cultural strengths, operating to provide a liveable future of health and wellbeing, connection and growth.
Its mission is to be an innovative and inclusive public place, providing open space and a dynamic mix of community and cultural experiences that celebrates the rich diversity of Prahran and interconnected Chapel Street precinct.
This will be achieved by:
- Providing a vibrant and safe public open space to linger, interact and connect.
- Engaging visitors with a variety of enriching cultural programs and experiences.
- Being a model for sustainable development and urban revitalisation.
- Fostering local and community partnerships, inspiring pride of ownership and positively contributing to the visitor economy.
- Serving as an accessible destination for everyone.
Green Credentials
The development of Prahran Square has transformed an old car park into a green and sustainable space.
The urban parkland features:
- 1,000 square metres of lawn
- 140 trees and 7,200 shrubs and plants
- rainwater capture system that reuses the water to irrigate the lawn and garden beds
- solar-powered waste and recycling bins. The solar-energy is used by the bins to compact their own rubbish (increasing their capacity by around 8 times that of a traditional bin)
- banks of bike racks at various points around the Square to promote sustainable transport
- sustainable design and building principles used across the site
- electric vehicle charge station within the car park
- low-energy LEDs used throughout the car park
- movement sensor light dimming technology in both levels of the car park, reducing power use when there is no activity.