Retail The shopping experience in the new Precinct has supplied a series of alternatives to the current mixed retail located on High Street .
Three major anchors located in the standard manner complete the race track pedestrian route that commences at the eastern side of the Piazza and winds it way circuitously around to the western side by means of the Galleria and level changes . At the Piazza entry to the Galleria , a multiple level escalator allows maximum choice of level , the lower Galleria offering direct access to the closest parking , the middle level offering exits back into Melrose Boulevard by means of a small arcade and the upper level which connects back into Cross Walk . As stated before , the Galleria is not an enclosed mall , but rather a roofed multi level street . The Upper Galleria gives way to traditional street retail in Cross Walk and turns perpendicularly into Slip Street , where high fashion and international brands supply a route back to the Piazza .
Various types of external cover provide the pedestrian with shelter from the weather , a glazed colonnade in High Street , a metal roofed colonnade on Whitely Road , a glazed canopy in Slip Street and metal canopies on Crescent Drive and Melrose Boulevard .
Structure In order to ensure that the new precinct remained within the tight budget indicated at the outset of the project , the structure of the entire Melrose Piazza Precinct had to be designed as one structural entity , in other words , the full structural loading implications of all the buildings from basement to roof had to be conceptualised before the piling and foundations could be laid . Previously , the Precinct had been designed as a superbasement with separate land parcels above and an intermediate basement accommodated large transverse beams to support the superstructure above the column grid of the super-basement .
The Structural Engineer has kept transverse beams to a minimum , only resorting to them where the intersecting grids and large openings in the slab required them . The lower two basements followed the gradients of the existing
256 Melrose Piazza