Plans Filed for Site of Illegally Demolished Melbourne Pub

Developers Stefce Kutlesovski and Raman Shaqiri have lodged new plans for the park at the former Corkman Irish Pub site in Melbourne’s Carlton.

The developers were fined and given jail time after demolishing the heritage-listed pub without planning approval or a permit in 2016. 

The plans for the 457sq m site at 154-160 Leicester Street are designed by Six Degrees and comprise a three-storey building with three basement levels and a rooftop terrace. 

The plans said that “the design has referenced the demolished former Carlton Inn Hotel building through the strategic use of siting, form, materials and colour scheme, allowing the history and development of the place to continue to be understood”.

The plans also show storage for 12 bikes in the second basement level, facilities and seating for patrons in the first basement level and more seating in the basement mezzanine level.

A servery and kitchen are included on the ground floor with more seating, a terrace and a bar.

The first and second floors will also have terraces, kitchens, bars and seating. 

The developers purchased the 159-year-old hotel site for $4.7 million in October 2014, according to Corelogic records.

▲ Corkman's Pub also formerly known as the Carlton Inn Hotel, prior to its illegal demolition in 2016.

The original hotel was built in 1856 by George Edmonds as the Carlton Inn on a much larger site before the creation of Leicester Place reduced it to its current size.

Edmonds passed the hotel to his sister’s family the Nobles who held it until 1964 when it was bought by Leo and Kathleen Conlan and then passed to Joseph Bongiorno in 1969.

It was renamed the Corkman sometime after 1969. 

Records from 1859 describe the building as a stone house with a “bar, cellar, nine rooms, kitchen and stables” while 1896 plans show an L-shaped double-storey masonry building with a cellar, yard, “fowl house” and stables on the site.

On an October weekend in 2016, the developers illegally demolished the heritage-listed Corkman.

The Environmental Protection Authority, the Melbourne City Council and the Victorian Building Authority filed separate cases in the Sunshine and Melbourne Courts against the developers’ company 160 Leicester Street, resulting in a total of nearly $2 million in fines for the illegal demolition and disposal of asbestos-contaminated waste.

▲ The site has a temporary park built by the developers for $1.6 million.

In September 2019, the County Court cut the fines to $1.1 million.

Then in 2020, the then Victorian planning minister Richard Wynne and  Melbourne City Council filed contempt of court proceedings with the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal.

The developers were fined $150,000, 30 days of jail time, and ordered to pay $250,000 in legal costs.

They unsuccessfully appealed the VCAT decision in September 2021.

The current plans for the Carlton Inn Hotel pub site have yet to be advertised for public comment.

The Urban Developer contacted Kutlesovski for comment.