Developer aim to convert Minerva into a hotel
Dear Supporters,
Thank you for your patience, we know it’s been an AGE since we updated you. Naturally, we hope you are as well as you can be in these times.
There has been much going on with the Action Group, but so much of it in slight increments and confidential. There really wasn’t anything to say as each step has been small and not worthy of news but the sum of its parts is quite interesting!
As you may have seen reported the Minerva is under a conditional sale to property developers ‘Central Element’. Central Element has an 'Option to Purchase' which will be dependent on an approved development application. Without the approved DA they will not proceed to purchase.
The DA plans to turn it into a hotel but despite media reports to the contrary, this has not been submitted at time of writing https://www.commercialrealestate.com.au/news/new-owners-planning-50m-redevelopment-of-minerva-theatre-in-kings-cross-1074543/
Their intent is not to reinstate it as a theatre, claiming it is "not viable", despite the independent and publicly available report from Hawkridge Entertainment clearly showing it can, sighting without context a report from Arup which is also not in the public domain.
Create NSW has gathered information directly from the theatre industry to further support the Hawkridge report.
We await the actual DA to be submitted where we expect to object, and we will ask you too as well.
More on that if and when they submit the proposal online as the idea of squashing a hotel above the building, punching holes in the façade and irrevocably altering the interior so use as a theatre is never ever possible again, sounds like we will have a fair bit to object to.
Please bear with us a while longer. There are keen Theatre Operators waiting in the wings, arts organisations excited to use the space when we emerge from the Pandemic which is taking that industry to the brink. There is also continued support from Create NSW and the City and Federal Government who all want it to be reinstated as a circa. 1,000 seat theatre.
Echoing the internationally agreed and established premise of the heritage preservation sector worldwide, we believe the best way to preserve a heritage building is to use it for the intention it was built.
The Minerva should be a theatre and not a hotel in what is an overly saturated environment.
Please like, share, subscribe and support to save one of the few remaining examples of Guy Crick and Bruce Furse’s work and an art deco masterpiece purpose designed for live theatre from the clutches of these developers.
More from us soon!
Warmly,
The Metro Minerva Theatre Action Group
Photo - Peter Sheridan