sso Bar, Golden Bunny by Tho Tho, Waku Waku as well as a new BWS. “It has been an incredibly exciting journey to see our vision for Melbourne Square come to life over the past four years,” OSK Property Sales and Marketing Director Scott Jessop said. “While last year had its challenges, it was immensely rewarding to see our parkland and Woolworths supermarket playing a supporting role for the public during a time of uncertainty. The amount of visitation they have both seen in a short time frame is quite amazing.” The two COX Architecture-designed towers share a host of amenities including a wading pool area, indoor pool, sauna, yoga studio, music room, gyms, golf simulator and cinema. When complete, the development will comprise a total of six towers including a workplace tower, luxury hotel and retail precinct. “The Melbourne Square masterplan is an exciting public realm focused addition to the city’s urban fabric,” COX Architecture director Paul Curry said. “It is fantastic to see the project creating value for the broader precinct and it will continue to generate public and economic benefits throughout its development journey.” Karratha City and Runaway Bay Centre switch to solar energy Vicinity Centres’ Karratha City in Western Australia and Runaway Bay Centre in Queensland now have solar energy systems up and running, taking the total number of Vicinity locations with a solar system up to 20.  Both projects took more than a year to complete, costing $8 million ($6 million for Karratha and $2 million for Runaway Bay) and creating 35 local jobs during construction.  The two shopping centres will contribute 3.6MW capacity, with an estimated annual energy generation of more than 6,000MWh per year.  “We unveiled stage one and stage two of our industry-leading solar program in 2018 and we’ve committed to installing solar across 22 shopping centres, generating over 48,500 MWh of clean energy each year – enough to power more than 8,300 homes – one of the largest programs of its kind in Australia,” said Vicinity Centres in a statement. The property group said it is on track to reach its goal of having net zero carbon emissions by 2030. Woolworths breaks ground on ‘next-gen’ distribution centre Woolworths Group’s supply chain arm, Primary Connect, has started building a new national distribution centre (DC) in the Moorebank Logistics Park in Western Sydney that will service more than 1,000 Woolworths supermarkets across Australia when it opens in 2024.  The national DC will be co-located with a regional DC that is set to open in 2025.  With cutting-edge automation and 75,000 square metres of floor space across both sites, the two facilities will enable Woolworths to expand its range and improve stock availability in-store.  “We have ambitions to offer a more tailored range of products in our stores. This has traditionally been constrained by what we can hold in our distribution centres,” Woolworths Group CEO Brad Banducci said in a statement. “Once both centres are up and running, we’ll be able to carry up to 8,000 additional products in our range than we can in our existing facilities. This will help unlock a much better shopping experience for our customers.” Woolworths will invest around $700-$780 million in the technology and fitout of both distribution centres in partnership with Dematic and Vanderlande, and Qube will invest around $440 million to build the distribution centres, with Woolworths signing an initial 20-year lease. The automation technology will enable the retailer to build tailored pallets for specific aisles in individual stores, which will help speed up the restocking process and reduce congestion in stores – ultimately enabling a safer work environment for teams with less manual handling demands. The investment comes after Covid-19 highlighted the critical role of distribution centres in keeping supermarket shelves full of food and other everyday essentials that Australians need.  The Moorebank Logistics Park has direct access to a dedicated freight rail line from Port Botany, with onward connections to the national rail network, which will help take at least 26,000 truck movements off Australian roads each year. The DCs are also targeting a Five Star Green Star Design and As-Built rating and will incorporate sustainability initiatives, such as solar PV systems, LED warehouse lighting and rainwater harvesting.