Plans to demolish 90-year-old Lakemba Hotel for apartment building

IT COULD be last drinks at the Lakemba Hotel, if a proposal for a 28-unit apartment block on the Haldon St site is approved.

The Lakemba Hotel will be bulldozed if an application to build 28 units and a ground floor pub on the site is approved. Picture: Phillip Rogers

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IT COULD be last drinks at the Lakemba Hotel, if a proposal for a 28-unit apartment block on the Haldon St site is approved.

The $10.4 million development by Iris Capital is currently on public exhibition and proposes to demolish the 90-year-old pub to build a six storey apartment with one, two and three bedroom units.

The hotel has sat on Haldon St since 1928. It was purchased by Iris Capital in October 2015.

The plans also include a ground-floor level hotel, bottle shop, 47 car parking spaces and one car wash bay.

The hotel opened in 1928, and was purchased by Iris Capital in October 2015.

The development company owns a large portfolio of pubs and hotels, including Riverwood Hotel, the Palms Hotel in Chullora and the Wattle Hill apartment complex that will replace the historic Hurlstone Park Hotel.

Iris Capital’s Wattle Hill development, that will be built in Hurlstone Park on the site of the historic hotel, formerly known as Grumpy’s.

Last year, the Lakemba Hotel took Canterbury-Bankstown Council to the Land and Environment Court over the development, seeking to build up to 1.3m higher than the 18m maximum for the B2 Local Centre zone.

The hotel argued that it was “unreasonable and unnecessary” to comply because the height increase was minor and not visible from Haldon St.

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The matter is yet to be determined by the Land and Environment Court.

The development is on public exhibition until May 23 and can be viewed at Council’s Campsie Customer Service Centre or Earlwood Library.