Caribbean Gardens

[2] The Spooner family subsequently announced plans to expand and transform the mostly defunct market into a business park that would "become the largest office precinct outside of the CBD".

[4] In 1958, whilst overseas, Arch Spooner became interested in fibreglass and realised the potential of the material for the boatbuilding industry, and established the Caribbean Boat Factory.

[5] The much-loved Caribbean Gardens and Market opened in 1976 and, in the 1980s, the next generation of the Spooner family began developing a technology and office park that blended into the surrounding environment.

The site was significant for being Victoria's "first local example" of a theme park,[6] with many original features, such as Japanese gardens, a railway, chairlift, jungle cruise and picnic areas.

The Woman's Weekly noted in 1966 that the Spooner family "aims to turn the area into a kind of local Disneyland, and already the shores and many islets at one end of the lake are dotted with fibreglass crocodiles, elephants, hippopotamuses".