Members of Melbourne City Council and the Save The Palace group rushed to investigate if this was a repeat of last November’s stripping of plaster and century-old decorations from the former music venue.
Of concern were treasured items as the 100-year marble suitcase. They were told by neighbouring retailers two skips of material were filled and carted off.
However, it turns out that owner Jinshan Investments is setting up a retail store to generate some rental income while it awaits a verdict in February on its modified 12-storey hotel plans.
Matthew Mattiske, from project managers Sinclair Brook, told The Age that Jinshan was doing “strip-out works” for the new retail space. These do not need planning permits, It’s not known what sort of shop it will be.
According to Save The Palace Theatre: “What is incredibly frustrating in this turn of events is that the developer clearly has decided to make these arrangements to generate some rental income whilst time drags on. Twelve months ago however there was a perfectly viable business offering bucket-loads of income to continue operating while this battle for the building continued.
“But hey, guess what? If the internal controls that were recommended last year (prior to the stripping of the plasterwork by the developer and the subsequent ‘reward’ they received; i.e. the internal controls being revoked) had been applied, we would never have got to this.”
As reported by Beat, the latest plan submitted by Jinshan is that the facade of the 103-year-old building is retained above ground floor but the rest of it demolished to build a 12-storey hotel (down from the original 33-storey hotel idea).
In the interim, supporters are urging the City of Melbourne to object to the “almost total demolition” of the venue, and object to the latest redesign application. One said in a letter, “City of Melbourne should signal to the community its position, and remove itself from the realm of indecisiveness.”
