Another of Melbourne's heritage pubs will be knocked down for apartments – although the 150-year-old building's facade has been saved after Melbourne City Council pushed for its retention.
The Great Western Hotel, which has stood at the corner of King and Little Bourke streets since 1864, will join scores of former pubs to be demolished for housing in Melbourne's inner city.
The pub shut in March. Its leaseholder said beer sales had declined from 42 barrels a week in the early 2000s to around 15 barrels last year.
Despite being built during the gold rush, the pub has no heritage protection. Only the front of the building will be kept for the proposed $15 million apartment tower.
Melbourne City Council agreed to allow the designers of the building to break city density limits set by the Andrews government, in return for including two levels of office space above the commercial ground floor. A council report finds that this office space is an "agreed public benefit" worth $1.1 million.
There will be 64 apartments in the 26-storey tower and commercial premises on the ground floor.
Councillor Nick Reece is the council's chair of planning and, in a previous career as a lawyer, used to drink occasionally at the pub – which was popular in the city's legal precinct and with journalists reporting on the courts.
He said the outcome Melbourne City Council had negotiated with developer Jin Yi Pty Ltd and its architects DKO would, overall, "make for a much better development and the preservation of the Great Western Hotel at the ground level".
But lobby group Melbourne Heritage Action said the entire two-storey pub should have been kept completely intact rather than just its facade staying.
"Heritage isn't just keeping the outside walls," said vice-president Rohan Storey. "Facadism like this is a far less than ideal practice."
Mr Storey said the existing pub even had a backyard. "So we will be losing an extremely intact goldrush pub," he said.
"It would almost be better to demolish it completely rather than this terrible compromise."
But Cr Reece said the council had done a fantastic job getting the developer to keep even the facade.
"It's easy to take a glass half empty view of this result, but given the lack of protection in place it is a minor miracle that we negotiated this outcome."
A title search of the pub shows developer Jin Yi Pty Ltd is owned by 26-year-old Chinese-born Jia Cheng Zhang.
The company wants to squeeze the 26-storey tower onto the small 325-square-metre site – smaller than a basketball court, which is 436 square metres.
Melbourne City Council is expected to approve the tower plan next Tuesday.