By Linda Morris
Supporters of the Metro-Minerva Theatre will step up pressure on the Minns Government to save the Potts Point Art Deco gem after development plans to turn it into a boutique hotel and cabaret venue were delayed.
The City of Sydney council’s independent planning committee on Wednesday night deferred Central Element’s amended plans for a 63-room hotel and Parisian-style cabaret room seating 250 people on the site of the mothballed theatre.
A committee majority raised concerns about the additional height and noise impacts and sought further separation of design elements in a move applauded by community members who want the site acquired and the building restored to an 800 to 1000-seat venue.
The move came as leading Sydney theatre producer John Frost said Sydney risked repeating the mistakes of fifty years ago when old cinema houses and dance halls had been knocked down for new development.
Appalled: Brandon Martignago outside the Metro-Minerva.Credit: James Brickwood
“It’s easier to convert a theatre than build it from scratch. A hotel can be situated anywhere, a theatre cannot,” he said.
“The Metro-Minerva could be a great second home to the Hayes Theatre or for someone like me to put in musicals and plays. To put a hotel there is really a bad, bad idea, and here is Sydney saying we want to be the arts capital of Australia and Melbourne saying the same. It’s time to stop talking about it.”
The planning panel heard from objectors who raised issues of noise and adverse amenity and those who worried the redevelopment put at risk Sydney’s cultural legacy.
Liberal Councillor Lyndon Gannon had declared any approval by the council’s planning panel would be the “final curtain call for Kings Cross”.
Lord Mayor Clover Moore and former Liberal arts minister Don Harwin had been particularly keen to see the Minerva-Metro restored to its art deco glory to address a shortage of mid-sized theatre venues in Sydney and maintain cultural diversity in Kings Cross.
Peter Sheridan, a committee member of the Art Deco and Modernism Society of Australia, told the planning committee Wednesday night that the theatre was one of only 12 art deco theatres serving in Sydney and only one of two commercial art deco buildings in the area.
The 1930s theatre had been used as an entertainment venue until its closure in 1976. It was later used by the production company Kennedy Miller which created Oscar-winning films such as Happy Feet, Mad Max and Babe.
Theatre producers have long complained that they have been forced to premiere shows in Melbourne for the lack of suitable theatres, with a 2021 government report finding there was a five-year logjam in bringing first-run shows to Sydney stages.
Frost said the shortage was very real. “The Mousetrap did cracker business around the country, playing at 90 per cent capacity and I could only get three weeks at the Theatre Royal and it was playing longer around the rest of the country. I’ve got a stack of smaller shows, three plays over the next 12 months and two musicals, that I can’t find a place here.”
Property developer Central Element said its hotel plans would carefully revive the heritage-listed building. The semi-circular dress circle boxes and grand staircase are to be preserved under the proposed conditions of consent.
Impacts on amenity and views had been robustly assessed and addressed. “No one believes in the Art Deco significance of the building more than the applicant who’s probably going to spend the better part of $100 million restoring this building,” the committee was told.
Dr Tim Greer, director of Tonkin Zulaikha Greer Architects, said the hotel was the most viable use for the building and had been delicately sleeved around the spectacular interior space which was to be restored.
Artist impression of the new-look Minerva HotelCredit: CE Minerva
Central Element’s revised development application replaced two levels of basement parking and an underground nightclub with a 250-seat cabaret venue with a “unique and international immersive entertainment experience that is unique to Sydney and Australia”.
An international hotel and food and beverage operator will manage the hotel and venues while Paris Society International will operate entertainment and food and beverage offerings. The main auditorium space will host Parisian-style interactive cabaret shows of “music, theatre and cinematography” in refined interiors with French hospitality.
Brandon Martignago, who was among more than 1700 people petitioning to restore the art deco theatre and runs the Metro-Minerva Theatre Action Group, appealed to the planners to look beyond the nuts and bolts of the development application and decide what benefited Sydney. He said deferral gave the Metro-Minerva a chance to survive.
“It’s a great disappointment that the City of Sydney and the state government have failed to take steps to acquire this beautiful theatre and bring it back to life for the betterment of the community.” He added after the deferral: “Maybe this is a call to arms for Arts Minister John Graham.”
Graham said the decision was a matter for the City of Sydney. “Unfortunately, it still leaves Sydney with the challenge of having far too few theatre spaces.”
The City of Sydney’s planning panel is the final arbiter on the matter, not elected councillors, after the development was determined to be contentious and requested variations to height limits. The DA was referred to Heritage NSW which granted its approval and so the application cannot be refused on heritage grounds, a council spokesperson said.
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