Chisholm is looking at establishing a design centre at the old NAB building on Lonsdale Street. (This was reported in the 27/6 Dandenong Leader, but does not appear to be on their website yet.) When the National Bank moved out of that building, I was disappointed that yet another big name company had migrated into the Plaza and away from the town centre. But Chisholm's plans would be a significantly better use of the site and inject a substantial amount of life into the main street. There are two reasons why we can expect this to add life to the main street.
First, according to Chisholm's 2009 annual report, there were about 17,000 students at the Dandenong campus in 2009. It's not clear how many of these students would be involved in design nor how these student numbers have been affected by issues such as TAFE fee increases. Nonetheless, we can infer roughly from the fact that Chisholm's courses are divided into 6 study areas, and design makes up about a third of one study area, that there could be up to 900 students making use of the Lonsdale Street building. That's an extremely large number of new people added to the central city. Even a third of that again would still be very large.
Second, students don't attend tertiary institutions based on the standard 9am-5pm, 5 day work week. Classes are scheduled at different times throughout the day (and sometimes at night), and there are significant opportunities for students to take time out. Given the students are located on Lonsdale Street, it's very likely this time out will be spent in and around Lonsdale Street itself. (Especially given the now vastly improved amenity of Lonsdale Street, particularly for pedestrians.) This should add life to city at all times of the day, not just at lunch times.
In VicUrban's original plans, Chisholm was identified as a candidate for setting up a business campus somewhere in the redeveloped area around Walker Street. It looks as though that may no longer pan out, but if Chisholm proceeds with its plans for the old NAB building, given the centrality of the location, the outcome may be better still.