During a 20-minute interview in the square, hundreds of people walked past. At no point did the number of people sitting down on the benches surpass the number of bins scattered around an area of the square that was once dominated by a large fountain.

Emma Davidson, who first moved to Woden 25 years ago, said there was a good reason for this; the square simply gave people no reason to stick around.

Ms Davidson said she had moved away and tried living in other places, but always came back to Woden because its community was second to none.

The only problem was that focal points for the community to meet had consistently closed over the years, leaving few options for people to get together.

"When I first moved to Woden, I would work in the office buildings around the Woden Town Square and I’d come up here in my lunch break," she said.

"There’d be office workers sitting around under the trees, eating their lunch. There’d be kids splashing around in the fountain.

"There’d be people just flowing everywhere, but also stopping and pausing and bumping into each other.

"We don’t really get that now because we haven’t got a public space that is pleasant for people to spend time in."

But the centre of Woden – the first satellite town centre built in Canberra – has changed significantly since those days, with the fountain just one of the features removed from the town square.

The square will soon undergo a makeover, with pop-up food vans, table tennis facilities and lush turf complete with sun lounges some of the highlights of a six-month revamp called the #WodenExperiment, which starts in February.

Woden Valley Community Council president Fiona Carrick said the infrastructure was a great start to revitalising the area, but that it needed to be retained beyond the six-month experiment in order to give people a pleasant place to meet and spend time in.

She said the same thing needed to happen across the broader Woden district to breathe new life into an area that was reeling from the loss of its Canberra Institute of Technology campus, Woden Basketball Stadium and other facilities like the Southern Cross Pitch and Putt Club, tennis courts and bowling greens.

The future of the Phillip Swimming and Ice Skating Centre is also uncertain, with the ACT government to open an expression of interest process to find someone to design, construct, operate and maintain a new rink that could put pressure on the existing facility.

"We [previously] had jobs, sporting facilities and a vibrant night life, which enabled us to spend much of our time in Woden," Ms Carrick said.

"Now we are at risk of becoming a concrete dormitory district."

A variation to the Territory Plan, approved by Planning Minister Mick Gentleman in August, allowed buildings up to 28 storeys tall in Woden's town centre.

Ms Carrick said that would "kill" the town square.

"How does a small business set up here, where they might only get sun in summer?" she said.

"You need the sun all year round to have people sitting outside and to create the atmosphere.

"We want mixed building heights. We don’t mind having some tall ones, but they’ve got to be located where it’s appropriate, then smaller buildings of human scale where our public spaces are.

"While the high-level planning documents do talk about social sustainability and social connectivity and all this sort of stuff, we don’t see it being implemented in Woden."

Mr Gentleman put a different spin on the Territory Plan variation in August, talking it up as a way to provide more planning certainty in Woden.

He said then that Woden had been "a hub of activity" and that its "future looks bright", with projects including an upgrade of the Phillip Oval, the Woden Park redevelopment and construction of the Melrose Football Precinct completed, under way or in the planning stage.

"Variation 344 introduces building height controls for the town centre as well as requiring new development to provide improved pedestrian experiences along main pedestrian areas as the rejuvenation of the town centre gets under way," Mr Gentleman said.

"The ACT government’s vision is to make the centre more accessible, with improvements to the street and open space networks, community facilities, as well as more housing choices to bring new people and businesses into the centre to support its role as a place to work, shop, live and play."

Mr Gentleman also trumpeted the ACT government's plans to link Woden with Civic through stage two of the light rail project.

But residents have expressed concern that the wave of residential developments in the town centre are not being matched by the introduction of community facilities.

Several of the community facilities that have already closed in Woden are set to be replaced by apartment towers, including three planned high-rise developments on the old Yamba Sports Club site, while Geocon's Wova development will comprise about 800 apartments across four buildings on the former Woden Tradies Club land.

Louise Cooke, who grew up in Woden and still lives there, said while the developments would bring more people to the area, the lack of community facilities around them would likely create an increasing disconnect.

"You’ve got the heart of Woden here, so you should feel like you belong. That’s really important," she said.

"If you syphon things off into different developments, it keeps people separated.

"Community is about bringing everyone together."

Woden is the only Canberra town centre without a dedicated, fit-for-purpose community centre.

Community Services and Facilities Minister Chris Steel announced in October that the ACT government had started planning for a community centre.

Residents spoken to by the Sunday Canberra Times welcomed this development, but Ms Carrick said it had to be "great, not second-rate".

"It’s not all about shopping," Ms Cooke added, referring to Westfield being one of the only current drawcards in the town centre.

"[Shopping] is not going to [bring the community together] for us."

All three women agreed Woden had "good bones" and desperately needed some facilities to help the community reconnect.

Ms Davidson, a keen advocate for multi-use indoor sports facilities, encouraged the Woden community to fight for what their community needed.

"This is what gives meaning to people’s lives; that feeling of community and social connection," she said.

"If you don’t have community, what are we as a group of humans?"

Do you have fond memories from your Canberra suburb? Share them with us. Email your stories and old photos to sunday@canberratimes.com.au