By Rachael Dexter and Clay Lucas
Standing opposite the grey, monolithic shell of what should be the Corkman Irish Pub, Tim Staindl and Duncan Wallace survey a victory that for them feels more like a defeat.
Nine years of their lives have been poured into fighting for the return of this Carlton institution, illegally bulldozed in October 2016, but the result has left them cold.
Duncan Wallace (left) and Tim Staindl were law students in 2016 when the Corkman Irish Pub was illegally demolished. Credit: Joe Armao
“It’s just really disappointing,” says Duncan Wallace. “I was just really shocked to see what they’ve done.”
For the community group that rallied behind rebuilding the 159-year-old pub after its illegal demolition, the outcome is a bitter irony.
“Our tagline was ‘brick by brick’,” Wallace notes dryly, “not ‘precast concrete by precast concrete’.”
Staindl and Wallace were Melbourne University law students when they began the fight to have the pub rebuilt, becoming its unlikely custodians.
The site’s owners, developers Stefce Kutlesovski and Raman Shaqiri, brazenly drove in excavators without a demolition permit and reduced the beloved pub to rubble, ignoring the protests of neighbours and even council staff who ordered them to stop.
The illegal demolition sparked citywide fury.
Kutlesovski and Shaqiri had paid almost $5 million for the pub in 2015. After their illegal demolition, the empty site was valued between $8 million and $10 million, effectively doubling its value overnight.
The saga became a potent symbol of the development threats which Melbourne’s heritage faces, the developers swiftly dubbed the “Corkman Cowboys”.
A fortnight after pulling down the pub, shocked by the level of community anger directed at them, the developers apologised publicly and promised to rebuild at their expense.
That promise, though, soon evaporated and for years they fought orders to reconstruct it, failing to comply with multiple enforcement orders. They were described in court judgments as showing little to no genuine remorse and having to be “dragged every step of the way to compliance”.
The pair were eventually fined more than $1.3 million and jailed for contempt in 2021, spending 28 days behind bars after failing to construct a temporary park on the cleared site.
A final VCAT enforcement order in 2022 seemed to be the endgame, compelling them to rebuild the pub “as nearly as practicable to the condition they were in immediately before their unlawful demolition”.
But three years later – and already three months past the most recent completion deadline of May 1 for the external building – the developers are yet again seeking an extension at a tribunal hearing to be held next week.
In an affidavit, the developers claim recent delays were to “ensure the historical integrity and accuracy”, after finding “discrepancies” in drawings.
The developers need approval for the timeline extension from Minister for Planning Sonya Kilkenny, Melbourne City Council and Staindl and Wallace.
In a background statement provided to The Age, the City of Melbourne confirmed it will not oppose the developers’ request to push their completion deadline to August 2025, citing “the substantial progress made” at the site, before adding that the final “decision rests with VCAT”.
Staindl and Wallace, though, have filed their opposition with VCAT – their core complaint being the material of the new build itself.
They argue the tribunal order allowing for “new materials” in the rebuild was to permit new bricks and bluestone, not a cheaper, entirely different mode of construction that erases the building’s authentic character.
“They’ve been ordered to rebuild the heritage parts of the old Corkman pub. What they’ve done is build it out of pre-cast concrete instead of bricks and bluestone,” says Staindl. “It’s not even close to an authentic rebuild. It’s a Temu Corkman.”
Replica plans for a replacement pub drawn up in 2017 for the planning minister.Credit: Williams Boag architects
Shaqiri and Kutlesovski told The Age after nine years of debate over what they had done in 2016, they just want to move on, and that criticism from Wallace and Staindl was premature.
“These guys are not builders. What’s there now is not the finished product,” Shaqiri said.
He promised the pair were taking great care to rebuild what they had destroyed as best they could. “We found tiles from northern England that match exactly what was on the facade.”
The rubble of the Corkman Irish Pub the day after it was illegally demolished in 2016.Credit: Eddie Jim
Kutlesovski said the rebuild was almost over and he hoped the building would return to its original use as a pub once they had completed the build and put it out for lease.
“For the sake of a few extra months, we want to do it right,” he said. “We can only do the best we can. The public will appreciate once it’s done.”
The original demolished walls were rendered bluestone and brickwork. When complete, the replica pub will have a 35-millimetre render applied over the concrete panels.
While Staindl and Wallace say they are fighting for the soul of the building, some planning insiders believe the bigger war has already been won.
They say forcing the developers to build anything resembling a pub – thus blocking their original goal of a lucrative apartment tower – is a pragmatic victory, and that rendering on concrete was the standard of modern construction.
“It’s no longer the 1850s – we don’t build that way any more,” one said.
But Lachlan Molesworth, the chair of the National Trusts of Australia, said that reproducing the Corkman faithfully was not just about aesthetics. “It’s about accountability and deterrence and also about permanence and durability. A proper reconstruction acts as a strong deterrent to unlawful heritage destruction and these sorts of criminal actions.”
He said when heritage buildings were illegally demolished, the response needed to be authentic reinstatement. “Not superficial replicas. Genuine materials endure for centuries.”
Lord Mayor Nick Reece and Kilkenny both declined to answer questions about whether the new concrete structure met the standard of the order to rebuild.
Kilkenny’s spokeswoman acknowledged the original 2016 demolition was “disgraceful” and pointed to the tougher penalties introduced in its wake.
“As this matter is currently before VCAT, it would be inappropriate to comment further,” she said.
Opposition planning spokesman Richard Riordan said the pub’s fate spoke volumes about Kilkenny and the government’s failure on heritage.
“The government wants us to believe they are capable of finding planning solutions to reimagine Melbourne while maintaining the city’s heritage. And yet on this one little site in Carlton, they can’t even manage to get an illegally demolished heritage pub rebuilt.”
Wallace and Staindl can’t understand why the government won’t force the developers to comply with the order.
“Enforce the order. Otherwise, what does it say about the heritage laws? That they can just be flouted,” says Wallace.
“The government and council need to take a really firm stance on this, not just roll over, because what is happening here is not acceptable. It’s not a genuine and authentic rebuild,” Staindl insists.
The pair began this fight as University of Melbourne law students. In the time it has taken for the shell of the Corkman to rise, there have been two Trump presidencies, and they have forged their own careers – Staindl as a barrister, Wallace as a university lecturer.
Asked if they will ever leave the fight behind them, Staindl says: “I hope so.” Wallace doesn’t hesitate. “Whatever it takes.”
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