Pigeons will love Clover’s $150m vision for Town Hall. We might prefer a food court

August 14, 2026 — 11:30am

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Like Clover Moore, we all love a square, or at least the idea of one. The City of Sydney has just unleashed its plans for a big beautiful square in front of Sydney Town Hall, the fruit of a 40-year plan to replace the existing buildings around the intersection of George, Park and Druitt Streets with our own Piazza San Marco.

The $150 million budget has been criticised, but the council says it has long factored this into its plan and points to the re-pedestrianising of George Street as a model of economic cost-benefit. The design for the 4500-square metre square, with 30 trees, “an interactive water feature” and fixed and movable chairs, expresses the council’s vision: “Like other great global cities, Sydney needs well-designed public spaces where people can come together, spend time and connect. A civic heart belongs to everyone – a welcoming place where everyday moments and civic life sit side by side.”

The Lord Mayor, Clover Moore, who has dedicated much of her 21-year tenure to increasing shared public spaces, says, “All the people now living in the city will enjoy it very much. It’ll be a Trafalgar Square, a Piccadilly Square, like Piazza San Marco in Venice.”

The new square will open up views of some of the city’s historic buildings such as Sydney Town Hall, St AndrewsCathedral and the Queen Victoria Building (and, um, the Citigroup and Ausgrid towers). Ah, the idea of a square. Old nonnas gossiping over a coffee in the morning, kids chasing balls during the day, open-air aperitifs in the twilight. In Europe, which the lord mayor likes to reference, the culture of town squares is a direct rebuttal to the Donald Trump-JD Vance lecture series on a continent “going to........

© The Sydney Morning Herald