The Corkman hotel on Leicester Street Carlton, was illegally demolished over the weekend of 15-16 October 2016. The pub was built in 1856, and enlarged in 1889.
20 June 2019
So sad, the colonial era 1856 #CarltonInn aka the #CorkmanHotel is still a pile of rubble 2 1/2 years after it’s illegal demolition in oct 2016. I say illegal, but the penalties are only about doing ‘works’ without a permit – there arnt any special laws about demolishing a heritage building, there’s no clear rule that they have to rebuild ! – but still, the fines add up to $1.9 mill, not nothing, but not enough since the planning rules that would have allowed facading and a 12 storey tower still apply, so its worth a lot. No wonder when the developers Stefce Kutlesovski and Raman Shaqiri appeared in court ‘Shaqiri was admonished for #smirking’. It would be nice to think they could be forced to rebuild, using the bits that remained – all the windows are outlined in #bluestone blocks, and the bricks could be reused too, and of course it should be a pub or similar again, with some room for higher development behind say the front rooms. I think that would be a better result than going to jail, or making it into a park. @ Corkman Irish Bar
10 September 2021
We will never forget. Pleased to hear that Raman Shaqiri and Stefce Kutlesovski lost their appeal against jail for contempt of court and $400,000 of fines. But if VCAT accepts the apology they finally made, they might not actually have to spend time behind bars. The site of the Corkman / #CarltonInn is now a little park. Planning laws have been somewhat overhauled since then, but demolishing a heritage listed place still isn’t an offence separate from doing something without a permit. First photo Broadsheet, 2nd The Age (James Bowering), last one FB.
4 November 2022
This is a design submitted for planning approval for the Corkman Pub site. It’s a 3 level pub (when they could have had 10 levels), and has been designed by 6* architects with reference to ‘historic buildings in the area’, in precast concrete, bright coloured tiles, and screens made of terra cotta pipes. I quite like it. I don’t know if the site is still owned by the heavily fined developers who demolished the 1850s Carlton Inn way back in 2016, but I presume so.
Storey of Melbourne 