Over the weekend we’ve been hearing whispers from eagle eyed music lovers that a planning permit has been posted that appears to show that the owners of the iconic East Brunswick Club in Melbourne intend on knocking down their bandroom and erecting a set of apartments in its place.
The planning application, which was lodged back in August, asks for permission for the following works at 280 Lygon St, Brunswick East, the address for the bandroom:
Partial demolition of an existing building, the development of a multi-storey building (five storeys plus basement) for shop and dwellings, use of the land for the purposes of dwellings, the continued use of part of the land for the purpose of an hotel and office space, waiver of loading bay requirements associated with the shop use and reduction in car parking requirements for the dwellings and shop
The bandroom is one of Melbourne’s most famous venues and plays host to a number of up-and-coming international acts and mid-level local acts each and every week.
The news comes off the back of a tough year for live music venues around the country with many venues either shutting down or circumstances changing that paint a stormy future. The Prince Bandroom in St Kilda was recently sold to a restaurant group who have indicated that there probably won’t be a future for the business once they redevelop the rest of the complex into restaurants.
Also in the last year Brisbane has lost The Troubadour, Sydney has lost Low Bar, Tone Bar, and The Hopetoun, and in Melbourne they lost The Arthouse, and The Public Bar. Once shining light however was the announcement last week that the Hi-Fi group of venues will be setting up shop in Sydney to compliment their existing venue locations in Brisbane and Melbourne.
We’ll let you know if we hear anything more on the planning application.
UPDATE 22nd November 2011: The bookers of the venue have released a statement
