Residents of Melbourne’s bustling inner north suburb of Carlton awoke late one Saturday night in October 2016 to the unexpected sound of demolition coming from the nearby pub, where there had been a suspicious fire the week before.
On the corner of Leicester and Pelham streets, opposite the University of Melbourne’s law school, the Corkman Irish Pub – formerly known as the Carlton Inn Hotel – had stood for 159 years.
The Age reported that despite the resident complaints, and a stop work order from the City of Melbourne, city inspectors were not able to reach the site of the previously popular student haunt until Monday morning, by which time the pub had been completely demolished.
The developers, Raman Shaqiri and Stefce Kutlesovski, bought the pub and its 456 sq metres of land in 2014 for $4.76m, with reported plans to convert it into an apartment building up to 12 storeys high. They had not sought any approvals before proceeding with the demolition. Although it was not on the Victorian Heritage Register, it was covered by heritage rules.
“Events around the Corkman were egregious, the developers sending their bulldozers to the site on a weekend to demolish the building when they lacked the planning or heritage permits to do so,” Dr James Lesh, a University of Melbourne researcher on urban heritage and heritage conservation, told Guardian Australia.
Victoria’s planning minister, Richard Wynne, called the act “outrageous”, and in the media the developers were branded “cowboys”.
Grief over the loss of the building was felt acutely among students and alumni of the University of Melbourne. “From the courtyard, you used to be able to see people working in the law school till late at night,” one student wrote. “Now, from the law school, you can see the tangled mess of concrete and wires that courtyard has become. A sadder sight by far.
“But it’s gone now. Soon to be replaced with an apartment building, I believe. Another thriving community replaced with an artificial one, another dilapidated bar replaced by a sterile monument to gentrification. Will we be the same law school without it? I don’t know.”
A Change.org petition to force the developers to resurrect the pub garnered close to 20,000 signatures. Lesh said students and academics were central to the community campaign.
“I think there’s a sense that people want more of a say in how our cities are changing. Every week or two, we hear stories of politicians and developers bending the rules,” Lesh said. “The Corkman went a step too far.”
Since then, the developers have been hit with nearly $1m in fines, including $600,000 in fines for illegally moving asbestos from the site. The Victorian government passed new laws with five-year jail terms and increased fines for developers who demolish heritage-listed buildings.
Students have graduated and moved on, but the local and state governments have been locked in a four-year court battle with the developers.
Initially, the government had proposed to have the pub rebuilt – something the developers committed to – but Wynne admitted in 2019 it would not be possible because an enforcement order under planning laws was not “legally sound”.
Instead, a compromise was reached to convert the site into a temporary park by November 2019 before submitting development plans for the site by 2022. More than four years since the pub was demolished, it’s still a construction site. The arm of a red crane can be seen popping up over the top of the hoardings from the law school. Inside, a handful of construction workers in asbestos-protective gear can be seen moving about the rubble.
As deadlines slipped, the developers have been taken to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal multiple times to get the park built. The most recent ruling in January requires the site to be open as a public park by the end of April.
In December last year, the tribunal sentenced Shaqiri and Kutlesovski to 30 days’ jail over contempt charges for failing to comply with orders. The pair are appealing against the ruling.
Despite the public outrage and the ongoing legal disputes, the developers will likely be able to use the site for apartments if plans are eventually approved. If not, they will at a minimum be required to restore the external facade of the pub to how it was before demolition by the end of June 2022.
This month, the Victorian parliament passed legislation aimed at preventing another Corkman from happening. The new law will allow existing permits to be revoked and new permits issued for specific purposes when sites are illegally demolished, powers to stop development on such sites for 10 years and an indictable offence for builders to carry out works without a permit.
Tellingly, politicians of all sides during the debate spoke fondly of the pub from their days as students.
“I seem to recall we actually considered as a student union buying the Corkman Irish pub,” Labor MP Lizzie Blandthorn said.
“Did you have a couple of ales there?” Wynne asked.
“We certainly had a couple of ales,” Blandthorn replied.
Greens MP Ellen Sandell said: “I myself as a student used to go there to watch talented local musicians participate in Irish music sessions. It was a much-loved tradition and just a beautiful, beautiful part of our suburb.”
Opposition planning spokesman Tim Smith said he wished the developers “could have gone to jail” but the law did not allow for it.
Site clearance is under way, with an archeologist on site, and both Wynne and the City of Melbourne told Guardian Australia they expected the park to be completed on time this time.
“These developers have been sent a clear message that they can’t get away with blatant disregard for our city’s heritage,” Wynne said. “We will continue to pursue them until they make good on their agreement to turn the site into a temporary park.”
The similarly-named Carlton Tavern in the United Kingdom will reopen in after a six-year community campaign led to the developers who demolished the pub being forced to rebuilt it as a facsimile of its former self, “brick by brick”. Lesh said it was less likely this would happen in Australia.
“It’s not the option that heritage architects, consultants or authorities would ordinarily recommend,” he said. “Reconstruction requires extensive historical, architectural and archival documentation: plans, photographs, drawings, surveys, correspondence, business records, much more.”
“The Corkman has been transformed many times by successive owners. For this site, it’s not possible to track every single physical change to the structure, every time the carpets were changed or walls were redecorated, or how people used the space over time.”
Lesh also warned of the recreation potentially feeling “Disneyfied” – inauthentic compared with the place people once visited. But he said that if the Corkman pub were reconstructed, it could become a monument to the public campaign to bring it back.
“An ideal outcome for the Corkman would be for authorities to require its rebuilding to its historic envelope and size – a structure inspired by the destroyed pub,” he said. “The New Corkman could be a monument to people power. It’d be the sort of place Melburnians might proudly take visitors for a drink and say: ‘Look what we achieved for our city, having a say, our heritage inspiring design, creating a place for the community for the future.’”
Guardian Australia sought comment from the developers through their lawyers, but did not receive a response. The current construction firm on the site was also contacted for comment.
