From topless bar to swish hotel and apartments: Colac upgrade to begin

It was once a topless bar owned by the Labor Party – now work is set to begin on turning the Colac Hotel in Port Adelaide into a family-friendly pub with 14 new apartments.

Artist's impression of the $12 million W Apartments project at the site of the Colac Hotel in Port Adelaide. Supplied by Dominion Homes.

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Work will soon begin on the $12 million redevelopment of a former Labor Party-owned topless bar.

Developer Dominion Homes on Tuesday turned the first sod at the Colac Hotel in Port Adelaide, which will be renovated into a family-friendly pub in its new life.

A four storey apartment block will also be built behind the pub on Santo Parade.

The project is expected to be completed in mid-2021.

Two of the 14 planned apartments have already been sold since it was opened up to the market on Sunday.

The Colac Hotel as it stands today. Photo: Dave Cronin

National Realty senior sales representative Souli Tsiolis, who is handling the sale of the apartments, said Dominion “really believe in Port Adelaide”.

“This is the first major development that we’re doing and there’s another three or four happening in the future – about $40 million in total, all in Port Adelaide,” Mr Tsiolis said.

“They will be renovating the pub, and with everything happening in that whole area things are really going to pick up.

Prime Minister Bob Hawke shouts the bar at the Colac Hotel during an unscheduled stop on his visit to Adelaide in April 1984. Hawke is pictured with his glass of soda with Special Minister of State Mick Young on his right at the back.

“There’s already Pirate Life just down the road.”

Dominion Homes – which in 2018 completed another apartment development in Quebec St – purchased the pub in 2016.

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It was formerly owned by the Labor Party before it closed in 2011.

The Colac is one of a number of Port Adelaide pubs that have been revived in recent years or are undergoing redevelopment.

The Ginos Group – which owns properties on city bar strips Peel and Leigh streets – last year revealed it planned to begin work on revamping the abandoned Globe Hotel in St Vincent St.

The site was listed for sale in late 2017 and bought by the Ginos Group for $1.6 million.

Company directors Zis and George Ginos expected to invest up to another $1.5 million in refurbishment and extensions.

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