Council agreed at last week’s meeting to allow property owner Graham Hardie to demolish the Roe Street building which most recently housed Tony Barlow Menswear.
Mr Hardie said demolition at the site would start almost immediately, with work also commencing on a development application for a shopping complex.
‘It is the most central site to Northbridge and is the entrance statement from the City Link. The development will do justification to that,’ he said.
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READ NOW‘The rail line has been a major reservation for business and retail to invest in Northbridge. The City Link will remove this.’
In approving the demolition order, Lord Mayor Lisa Scaffidi said that the building was ‘very dilapidated’ and its fabric did not have any heritage significance.
‘The demolition will bring an improvement to the site while we wait for the development application,’ she said.
Campaigns to the save the site did not consider the economic viability of the building or the changes made to its interior and exterior.
Ms Scaffidi said the heritage value of the building could be recorded in a photographic archive, a condition of the demolition order, that paid homage to the building’s former uses as a tobacco factory and Peter’s Ice Cream Factory.
Councillor Reece Harley was the only elected member who opposed the demolition.
‘There is no reason why the development could not keep the facade of the site,’ he said.
A report to council says demolition approval was previously granted at the site in 2009, with the building’s heritage significance ‘unproven’.
Conditions of the order include landscaping of the site within 60 days of demolition and a photographic record.