Doma have lodged plans for four new buildings on the old Dickson motor registry site, including apartments, restaurants, shops and an office building to house ACT public servants. The buildings will cost $160 million and stand up to 25 metres high, and include a new “Civic Plaza” and a narrower zone of shops and cafes, bringing a promised “Melbourne laneway feel”.

At the southern part of the site a 13,000 square metre government office building will house Access Canberra. Opening on to Northbourne Avenue, where the new tram will run and also on to a new “Civic Plaza”, it will be six stories high.

Across the Civic Plaza will stand a 144-unit apartment building, with six levels, first-floor childcare and ground-floor shopping. Opening on to the new bus interchange, the buildings in Civic Plaza have been designed to protect the plaza from southerly winds and prevailing northwesterly winds.

The northern block will also have two buildings and contain 249 apartments, ground-floor shops and restaurants and a medical centre. Between the two northern buildings, the developers plan a narrow, six-metre wide “Challis Lane”, including cafes and designed to create “a more intimate urban experience rarely seen in Canberra”.

Under the northern building is proposed another two levels of basement parking, with 354 carparks – 322 of them for residents of the apartments. Both carparks will work by number-plate recognition.