Positivity sells.
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It you bought the worst house on the best street eight years ago and you knew that you needed $17 million to transform it back into the beauty it once was, well, you'd be positive, too.
And especially if culture, not money, was your main motivation.
When Century Venues, operated by the Eliades family, purchased the historic Victoria Theatre on Perkins Street in the East End of Newcastle in 2015, the oldest standing theatre in NSW, dating to 1891, they knew they were playing the long game.
As Newcastle Herald journalist Amy De Lore wrote in 2016, "The lead-up to its sale last year was a scenario itself worthy of theatre. The building, which had not been used as a theatre for 50 years and had been permanently boarded up since 1999, was put up for auction by its owner, hotelier Arthur Laundy, with a philanthropic reserve price of just $1.
"Laundy, who had fought off competition from developer Jeff McCloy to buy the building for $1.1 million in 2004, offered the peppercorn reserve in the hope of attracting a well-intentioned buyer interested in restoring the venue. But with a prime 898-square-metre city block, and mixed use zoning allowing for development of up to seven storeys, the chances of attracting someone interested in retaining it as a theatre were not considered high."
Century Venues was that one buyer who had the heart and guts to buy the venue.
At the time of purchase, Century Venues managing director Elia Eliades and co-director Greg Khoury issued a statement: "The Victoria Theatre Newcastle is without doubt a building of national significance and a rare opportunity. Its retention and revitalisation as a working heritage theatre should be unequivocal. We are excited by the huge challenge ahead and look forward to working closely with the city and people of Newcastle in returning this treasure to its rightful place as a great cultural asset."
Huge challenge indeed.
Nearly eight years later, they have kept the community goodwill that even preceded the sale, with the Revive The Vic support group that was formed to encourage a buyer who would retain the history building as a theatre remaining active.
The Century group has cleared the hurdles of approval for the redevelopment from the Heritage Council of NSW and obtained development approval from the City of Newcastle. Century spent $800,000 clearing debris (including tonnes of pigeon poo) from the building and another $280,000 on the development applications.
The project is now "shovel-ready" for stage one of the redevelopment. A $4 million NSW Government Creative Capital grant announced in July 2022 will help.
The works should start by June of this year, Century's executive director Greg Khoury said in an interview in December, the morning after he addressed an invitation-only crowd in the theatre prior to the release of six social history video vignettes about people who used to work and attend the theatre.
If there are no hiccups, the main floor of the theatre should be open and ready to host events within 18 months, roughly meaning it could be open for business by January 2025.
Among the potential pitfalls - any geotechnical issues. Khoury is not expecting to find the need for grouting, although he notes government funding is available to help should problems be discovered.
Khoury says the company has never wavered from its goal of restoring the Victoria.
"It is what we perceived in the first place," he says. "It's gone through two earthquakes and there are no cracks in those walls. There's no foundational issues. And once we did buy, we conducted due diligence. The structure was found to be fine, perfectly safe.
"We're not going to do a lot to it really. The plans are about making it compliant. Its electrical, its fire and safety, redoing the stalls and creating flexible space for the staggered fall. Being able to bring out seats, so it can hold functions, it can hold dinners, it can have people standing in contemporary music performances, or seated. Really, it's about being as flexible as possible."
Stage one work will be all about the ground floor to begin with. The floor will be dug up and new workings put in place.
"At some period, post 1960, they put in a flat floor," Khoury says. "So originally, the floor would have raked down. In fact, the original floor is under - you can see it under the stage - the floor would have sloped down a metre-and-a-half. We will take out that concrete floor, the raked stalls, we will make it flat and it will be in three sections as per the Scott Carver [architects] plans, so it will step down rather than rake down.
"The floor steps down, seats the same. The rake in the stage will go - nowadays that's not desirable. We'll flatten the stage out. It will stay where it is."
The building will be completely rewired and air-conditioning will be installed, going under the floor.
"It's about touching the building as lightly as possible, to make it comply to modern standards," Khoury says.
They will not install a kitchen, but instead, create a prep area suitable for caterers.
The first stage includes extending the side of the stage and adding one floor on the "wedge" building adjacent to the stage to create dressing rooms and a viewing platform. Eventually, in stage two, it will include reinstating the balcony so it can operate as restaurant cafe, including during daytime hours. A second set of stairs from the main floor will be reinstated, connecting to the mezzanine.
It will have stepped stalls, it will be able to have private functions, contemporary music, comedy, theatre, community events, end of year shows, dance, end of year concerts, a range of things. Very mixed. A bit more edgy, bit less conventional.
- Century Venues executive director Greg Khoury describing the future restored Victoria Theatre
The end goal, in Khoury's words: "It will be a hybrid house, so it will be mixed. We want it to be as flexible as possible, we want it to be as affordable as possible, particularly for community groups. It has got to be the people's theatre. Newcastle already has the magnificent Civic, but it is a formal, seated theatre. This will be far more robust.
"It will have stepped stalls, it will be able to have private functions, contemporary music, comedy, theatre, community events, end of year shows, dance, end of year concerts, a range of things. Very mixed. A bit more edgy, bit less conventional."
And in the end, Century will gift the theatre into a non-profit entity.
"We don't need to own it," Khoury says. "We just want to run it on a long-term basis."