Melbourne’s Festival Hall set to receive heritage protection

Threatened with demolition, Melbourne's Festival Hall could be saved after Heritage Victoria recommended the 100-year-old venue be included on the Victorian Heritage Register.

The traditional centre of live entertainment in Melbourne, the venue was nominated in January, after a planning application was lodged with the City of Melbourne to build two 16-storey apartment buildings and demolish most of the original building.

The venue has played host to some of the biggest names in music, including The Beatles, Frank Sinatra and Fleetwood Mac, and more recently the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Ed Sheeran and Lorde.

Refurbished for the 1956 Olympic Games, Festival Hall has also been a venue for memorable boxing bouts - with Lester Ellis, Lionel Rose and Anthony Mundine all fighting there.

Victorian Minister for Planning Minister, Richard Wynne, said a heritage listing would mean any development of the site would require approval to ensure the building's character and history were preserved.

Minister Wynne said the venue was an important part of Melbourne's social and cultural life, commenting “nothing speaks to Melbourne’s arts, music and sporting culture quite like Festival Hall. It has a proud history, and heritage protection will give it a safe and secure future too.”

“Inclusion on the Victorian Heritage Register will mean any development on the Festival Hall site will have to respect the character and the history that makes Festival Hall so special.”

If the Heritage Council decides to include Festival Hall on the Victorian Heritage Register, any proposed development would need a heritage permit before it could proceed.

Owner Christopher Wren said the process still had a long way to go and the development had not yet been shelved.

Wren told ABC Radio Melbourne "ee can make submissions about whether it's got heritage significance … what should or shouldn't be retained, and what may be capable of being removed but still maintaining the memories of events that happened there in years past.”

He said the development plan put forward earlier this year aimed to incorporate the history of the venue, adding “we've gone and spoken to people we regard as having expertise in this area and got their recommendations and sought to incorporate that because we recognise that the building for some people has great memories.”

When the development was announced in January, Wren said the venue was becoming unprofitable, advising "I draw the analogy (that) an old boxer facing up to a younger, bigger, stronger opponent is going to get well and truly pummelled and with the opening of Margaret Court Arena, and Hisense (Arena) to a lesser extent, we're being pummelled".

Submissions on the listing can be made at heritagecouncil.vic.gov.au

Images: The exterior of the Festival Hall (top) and an artist's impression of two apartment towers proposed to replace the venue (below).

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