Whitsunday Regional Council removes Proserpine pub from heritage register despite community concerns

A recent council vote gives the owners of a historic Whitsunday hotel the green-light to demolish the building, but not everyone is on board with that idea.

Palace Hotel, Main Street, Proserpine

The future of a historic Whitsunday watering hole remains uncertain, with the council telling concerned community members it cannot stop the building’s demolition now that it has lost its heritage listing.

Whitsunday Regional Council voted unanimously at its July 15 meeting to remove Proserpine’s 100-year-old Palace Hotel from the Local Heritage Register despite community concerns over its potential demolition creating “another vacant lot of land in the Main Street”.

The response to a submission received during the delisting process’ mandatory public consultation period, which ended on June 1, was that the council “understands their concern” and “does not want to see empty land with the Central Business District” but “has limited control over property, as defined by the Building Act 1975 and Planning Act 2016”.

The hotel, most recently trading under the name O’Duinns Irish Pub, suffered significant damage in 2017’s Cyclone Debbie and has been closed to the public ever since.

Its owners Thomas and Audrey Dunne put it up for sale earlier this year, and agents PRD Whitsunday confirmed this week they had been in discussions with several interested parties who were not necessarily looking to knock the building down.

“The structural integrity will, at the end of the day, determine whether they can save the building or not,” the agency’s CEO Annette Harm said.

“They are looking at that as an option, because it’s quite a solid building,” Ms Harm said.

The commercially zoned property is listed online as “all offers considered”, however Ms Harm said the vendors were aiming for “around the $350,000 mark”, which is the approximate land value.

The hotel has been removed from the local heritage register along with the Hook Island Underwater Observatory and Proserpine war memorial, both of which were destroyed in the 2017 cyclone, and the Proserpine Uniting Church, whose owners are planning a complete demolition and rebuild after irreparable cyclone damage.

Originally published as Whitsunday Regional Council removes Proserpine pub from heritage register despite community concerns