It’s this WWII veteran’s second home. But now it’s sitting on a $70m developer goldmine

When Evripidis Mouxouris arrived in Sydney from Cyprus as a refugee in 1976, with a wife and two young children to look after, times were hard.

At one point he had only a tin of sardines to feed his family – but no tin opener. He had to go door-to-door asking people in shops if they had one he could borrow.

“We didn’t have anything,” the 102-year-old said, speaking through a translator. “The club took us in.”

The Cyprus Club in Stanmore in the inner west, founded in 1929, swelled from a small group of friends to a community of thousands after the 1974 Turkish invasion of northern Cyprus made Australia home to the biggest Cypriot expatriate community in the world after Greece.

The club is built on valuable land on Stanmore Road.Credit: Nick Moir

Mouxouris, a Second World War veteran who enlisted with the Allies because he “wanted to go abroad and fight the fascists”, meets up with his retired friends every Tuesday to play cards in a bar in the building’s basement. The taverna upstairs hosts live music and dancing and serves delicious lunches of tzatziki, pita, halloumi and arni kleftiko – slow-cooked lamb with potatoes.

But now the club is at a crossroads. Membership has thinned, and income is dwindling with it as second- and third-generation Cypriot-Australians forge new lives in the wider community, club members said.

Its debts have spiralled above $8 million, leaving members with an urgent question familiar to many of Sydney’s old clubs: redevelop, sell the farm, or shut down.

The club has one card yet to play – it is built on a huge block of prime inner-city development land, close to transport links that put it squarely in the sights of the Minns government’s high-density development push.

The site covers nearly a hectare and includes the club’s buildings, a car park, six neighbouring houses and a large vacant block. It was rezoned last year, potentially allowing for residential development of six to seven storeys across much of the site, subject to council approval. The whole complex is conservatively valued at $70 million.

Whether the land is sold piecemeal or redeveloped in a way that allows residential development and the club to coexist is now the subject of intense debate.

At the eleventh hour, infighting among the club’s directors and members is escalating. A director resigned earlier this year, alleging financial mismanagement by other board members, which has been strenuously denied. A meeting on the club’s future was also blocked by a Supreme Court injunction brought by members concerned that the board would offer up the land for development in a “fire sale”.

The board has started the process of selling the site by advertising for expressions of interest – against the wishes of some members who want the club to stay where it is.

A note from the board to club members circulated in January stipulated that doing nothing was not an option.

“Club revenue has been extremely poor for many years,” the board’s note read. “The club has been operating at a loss … and only survived through our members’ generosity.”

Dancing at lunchtime at the Cyprus Club.Credit: Nick Moir

The document spelt out many risks of staying at the site but was generally positive about options that involve selling.

The board’s current president, Michael Kyriacou, said the board was undecided about the options.

“The community’s divided between selling and staying and has been for the last 10 or 15 years,” Kyriacou said.

He conceded that members would have to vote in support before the property could be sold. The Herald pointed out that real estate advertisements listing the site as “for sale – expression of interest” could be seen as saying the property was already on the market.

The club features a large auditorium on its upper level. Credit: Nick Moir

“It’s definitely not for sale - they should have removed that [from the advertisement], it is a bit misleading,” Kyriacou said. “Unless someone turns up with an amazing amount of money.”

“We’re just asking the market to make a bid, to put their hat into the ring.”

Shortly after Kyriacou spoke to the Herald, a legal firm representing the club’s board sent a letter demanding this story not be published.

“The board has been dysfunctional for quite a while,” said former president Andrew Costa, who quit the position in February and sent a resignation letter to members that made a number of contentious claims about members of the board. “In the end, I felt I couldn’t continue in a leadership position.”

Lunchtime at the taverna.Credit: Nick Moir

The club’s audit committee produced an internal report in March which identified potential financial mismanagement, though the assertions have not been verified by an external audit procedure.

A separate letter that alleges mismanagement and poor governance by the board, signed by 70 current members, was sent to regulators, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission and the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission this week.

The board, in a statement conveyed through its lawyers, rejected claims of financial mismanagement.

“What is abundantly obvious is that the members are pressing for media coverage on purported governance issues (which are denied) to derail the expression of interest process,” the statement said.

Asked about the internal audit that identified potential financial mismanagement, the board said: “The Cyprus Club is at a loss to understand the basis of this allegation. However, the Cyprus Club denies the conclusion raised.”

“The Cyprus Club is not aware of any investigation by either ASIC or the ACNC,” the statement said.

ASIC and the ACNC declined to comment.

Some members said they objected to the current board pushing on with the sale process because they believe an outright sale would be presented to members as the only serious option. They feel this would further disperse and dilute the Cypriot community, while a joint venture with a developer would keep the club in Stanmore and set it on course for a sustainable future.

A game of cards in the club’s basement cafe.Credit: Nick Moir

“I think Stanmore is gold. We can’t find anywhere better than Stanmore,” said Kay Pavlou, a member who has made a documentary film about some of the club’s history. “It’s very important that we continue what the old people tried to do.”

Pavlou and others said they would like to see board positions thrown open to elections before the club’s future was decided.

The expressions of interest process for the sale closed on Thursday. The board will consider the expressions of interest lodged next week, the real estate agency managing the process said. It will then have to take its options to the club’s membership.

“We have had good plans before that would have worked for the club, kept people together,” Mouxouris said, referring to previous talks about a joint venture with a developer that was set to allow residential development on the majority of the site in return for refurbishing the club and clearing its debt.

“But it got stuck. Now we have this board that wants to sell. The members say it’s not up for sale. We must stay.”

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