The owners of Newcastle's historic Victoria Theatre have applied for a federal grant to help restore the building but say they will proceed with the multimillion-dollar project "one way or another".
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Century Venues say they will start restoring the 147-year-old Perkins Street building's facade early next year.
The company has lodged a development application to install scaffolding and safety mesh across the facade and will print a life-sized image on the mesh showing what the restored building will look like.
But the main part of the renovation, to restore the building as a working theatre, will cost more than $10 million.
Century had planned to complete the project in two stages but has now decided to press on with all the work at once.
The firm bought the Victoria in 2015, won development approval in 2020 for a $9.8 million renovation and secured a $4 million grant from the state government in July 2022 towards stage one of the internal works.
The company had said the first stage would include tiered seating for 500 people on the theatre's ground level, a bar, back-stage areas and sound and lighting equipment.
Stage two would include restoring the 450 seats in the dress circle.
The company said a year ago that stage one was due to start in June and the theatre could reopen in early 2025, but the site has been largely idle since then.
Century Venues executive director Greg Khoury said on Tuesday that the company wanted to roll the two planned stages of the internal renovation into one.
"We want to do the whole lot," he said.
"It's pointless to do a stage one which is kind of truncated anyway. It just makes sense to do it properly all up."
The Victoria is the oldest surviving theatre in NSW.
The company has applied for a regional arts grant from the federal government to add to the state government's contribution and is investigating other financing streams.
"We're committed to the project, and we're going to fund it one way or another," Mr Khoury said.
"It's long-overdue. It's taken us much longer than we had hoped, but it's just the nature of these buildings."
He said the work would take a year to 18 months.
Century hopes to secure a construction certificate for the major works by the middle of 2024.
The company plans to modify the original development approval to build underground toilets and improve the proposed back-stage area.
The company runs the Enmore, Metro and Factory theatres in Sydney, the Comedy Store in Moore Park, The Concourse at Chatswood and the Manning Bar at Sydney University.
Mr Khoury said the company planned to address an "age-old problem with theatres" by opening the Victoria foyer during the day as a cafe and for events.
"You have all this daytime potential use that's not used.
"They are essentially operating for four to six hours at night.
"You've got to have some kind of daytime activity as well and having people come in and out of the building."
Michael Parris
Michael Parris reports on politics for the Newcastle Herald. He started at the Herald in 1994 after working in the ABC Newcastle newsroom. Michael spent much of his career as a sub-editor before moving into political reporting in 2017. He was a finalist in the Sports Australia national media awards for his stories about a male-only tennis club in Newcastle. He has covered NSW and federal elections, state and federal budgets and local politics. He has also written extensively about the COVID-19 pandemic with a special focus on data analysis and the effects of lockdowns on the Hunter community.
Michael Parris reports on politics for the Newcastle Herald. He started at the Herald in 1994 after working in the ABC Newcastle newsroom. Michael spent much of his career as a sub-editor before moving into political reporting in 2017. He was a finalist in the Sports Australia national media awards for his stories about a male-only tennis club in Newcastle. He has covered NSW and federal elections, state and federal budgets and local politics. He has also written extensively about the COVID-19 pandemic with a special focus on data analysis and the effects of lockdowns on the Hunter community.
