An anniversary 40 years in the making took place in the Gippsland Centre Sale on October 30.
The $21.6 million Gippsland Centre shopping complex was officially opened on October 29, 1984, by Treasurer of Victoria Robert Jolly with 1000 guests in attendance.
The following day, City of Sale mayor Geoff Rossetti and 1983 Miss Victoria Jeanine Clarke were on hand to welcome shoppers into the complex, featuring four chain stores, including Safeway and Target, and 49 specialty shops.
Over 30 people attended last week’s celebration, listening to guest speakers, watching a film about the centre’s history, browsing newspapers and photos, and eating cake.
Gippsland Centre Sale’s management team compiled a visual retrospective of the centre’s construction. The retrospective displays photographs from 1984 as the centre was being built, plus newspaper clippings highlighting its milestones and controversies.
Tied in with the centre’s construction was a decade-long battle to have the old Sale railway station relocated from the north side of the Desailly and Cunningham Sts intersection to Pettit St. At last week’s celebrations, former Sale City engineer Alan Lewis spoke about these challenges.
Former City of Sale mayor and local historian Peter Synan, who was mayor throughout the centre’s construction, was also in attendance.
Incumbent Wellington Shire councillor Scott Rossetti, whose father Geoff was mayor when the centre opened, addressed the small crowd about conversations with his father and his memory of the opening day.
Council’s ambitious project
Forty years ago, Sale City Council completed its most ambitious and controversial project: building the Gippsland Centre in Sale.
“The (Gippsland Centre) was a culmination of the work we started in about 1970 when we did studies to work out where Sale was heading,” said Alan Lewis.
Alan moved to Sale in 1968 and became the city’s engineer until resigning in 1985.
The decision to proceed with the shopping centre came after reports by planning consultants Wilson Sayer Core Pty Ltd identified local retail sales plummeting as people flocked to Latrobe Valley and Melbourne shopping centres.
When the Centre opened, Geoff Rossetti, father of incumbent Wellington Shire councillor Scott Rossetti, was serving as the City of Sale mayor. Scott spoke last week at the centre’s 40th celebrations, describing the project as a “gutsy move” for a council to undertake.
In an article commemorating its 10th anniversary in 1994, the Gippsland Times reported the centre was considered the largest shopping complex – and possibly the first – developed by a council in Australia.
Scott recalled discussing with his father how the opening of Mid Valley in Morwell was drawing shoppers from Sale, redirecting money that could have supported local businesses. So, the council decided to take action.
“The (Centre) was actually something that was designed completely to support the local shops and retail outcomes,” Scott said.
“It didn’t come without its controversies because a lot of local shop keepers didn’t like… (that it created) a bit of competition. But ultimately, people were leaving town to go shopping somewhere else and so (the council) achieved an outcome that kept people in Sale,” he said.
Local historian Peter Synan was mayor throughout the development of the centre. He said the project was about “regathering” Sale’s identity as a commercial centre in Gippsland.
“We’d traditionally been the market power, and people came here to shop. But then, as towns developed elsewhere, we lost that ascendancy. But through this, we were able to have a magnet drawing people back in,” he said last week.
But even before the Centre’s construction began, the council faced setbacks.
They saw that optimising Sale’s commercial district first required relocating the old railway station located on the north side of the Desailly St intersection with Cunningham St to Pettit St. The next step was integrating the shopping complex with the existing Raymond St commercial district.
Reportedly, the council wanted to avoid the outcome of Mid Valley, which had been built on the town’s outskirts and was drawing business away from the town centre.
Discussions to relocate the railway station began in 1971. But it was difficult, Alan remembered because VicRail had never encountered such a request.
“After 10 years of negotiations, they said to me they weren’t keen to do it,” he said.
“I still remember that Friday afternoon in Melbourne when they said, ‘We’ll need an act of parliament, and that will take years to obtain.’ As I drove back to Sale, I thought, ‘No, it won’t take years’.”
He said he phoned Alan Hunt, who was then the minister for local government, and explained the predicament. The minister replied, ‘We have our last cabinet meeting of the year on Monday at 10 o’clock. If you can provide me with a draft bill by then, I’ll present it.’
The Sale Station and Relocation Act 1981 was ultimately created within a weekend, moved through parliament in 14 days, and officially passed in February 1982.
The first train entered the new station – located on Pettit St – on November 11, 1983. Remnants of the old station remain on Reeve St today, with the historic train line signal box, currently presented by Sale Museums as a railway museum.
With the station relocated, the Sale City Council entered a contract with Pak-Poy Kumagai to jointly construct the centre on December 22, 1983. Pak-Poy Kumagai was formed through a partnership between the Australian engineering firm Pak-Poy Kneebone and the Japanese construction giant Kumagai Gumi. They served as financiers, project managers, and principal contractors on the project.
The council subsequently established Sale Station Development Pty Ltd to manage the development and operation of the complex.
Construction began in 1984, proceeding quickly.
Alan said 90 per cent of the contractors responsible for the build were local, including Smolenaars Plumbing, now Tequa Plumbing.
“The electrical work was done by Jones (Electrical), and that stimulated them to get bigger, and they’re still going… all the plasterwork was done by Yarram Plaster and from here, they opened up in Melbourne, and they ended up doing all the plaster work for the (Crown) Casino. So, it really made a few people bigger than just being a small local contractor,” he said.
The foundation stone was laid on April 13, 1984, by Ian Cathie, the then minister for industry, commerce and technology. The Gippsland Times reported around 200 people attended the ceremony, including Peter, who was mayor at the time.
It was reported that Peter addressed concerns about the council’s ambitious plans at the event, suggesting that some viewed them as overly ambitious.
In that same year, however, after taking an estimated 69,000 workdays, building hundreds of tonnes of steelwork, and laying 222,000 concrete bricks, Sale had a new shopping complex.
When the Centre opened at 9am on October 30, mayor Geoff Rossetti and 1983 Miss Victoria Jeanine Clarke led a countdown for shoppers eager to explore Sale’s newest attraction.
Scott recalled how a special train from Spencer Street Station was arranged to bring Melbourne residents to the event. His father greeted each visitor at the entrance, shaking so many hands that he ended up in a sling for weeks afterwards.
Inside, shoppers found four chain stores, including Target and Safeway, along with 49 specialty shops. A special promotion offered the chance to win a Toyota Corolla or a P&O cruise.
Though some shops have moved or evolved, the centre’s exterior has remained unchanged. Alan explained that the brickwork on the façade was carefully designed and laid to resemble weatherboards – a nod to the railway station.
As for the building’s legacy, Alan said the centre achieved what it was designed to do: maintain the connectedness of Sale’s commercial centre.
“We’ve been one of the few strip centres that hasn’t really suffered with the building of a major shopping centre. If you look at Morwell and even Traralgon to a certain extent, (comparatively) we’ve been able to get a fairly refined retail space, which is what we set out to do,” he said.
