Dan Murphys looks set to move into old Sandy Bay Shiploads site

It’s sat vacant for close to a year and a half, but there could soon be movement at the old Shiploads site at Sandy Bay. Here’s who plans to move in.

Sandy Bay could get a Dan Murphys. Image: All Urban Planning.

Dan Murphys could soon build another store in Hobart, as the liquor giant eyes off the old Shiploads site at Sandy Bay.

The 2300 square metre lot of land at 259 Sandy Bay Road has been vacant for nearly a year and a half, after the discount warehouse closed it’s doors in December 2022.

A 46-lot carpark for the mega-retailer is planned at 267 Sandy Bay Road, which is 880 square metres.

A development application for partial demolition, alterations and change of use to a bottle shop was lodged with the Hobart City Council and is currently publicly available for viewing.

Members of the public have until the 19th to provide feedback to the council on the plan.

If the council approves the application, it would be the fourth Dan Murphy’s in Tasmania: Currently there is one in New Town, one in Bellerive and one in Launceston.

Under the plans for the new store, the old Shiploads building would be kept, without changing the scale or height.

The facade will stay the same, but the lime green would be replaced by the retailer’s recognisable bottle green.

Shiploads Sandy Bay shut down for good in December 2022. Picture: Google Street View

“It is expected that the proposed bottle shop will predominantly serve the local area of Sandy Bay, Mount Nelson, Battery Point and south going traffic to Taroona,” planners said in the application.

It’s estimated the new store would result in an increase of 496 more vehicles per day at the intersection into the Sandy Bay Road site, compared to the old Shiploads store.

In summer, the store would be open Monday to Saturday from 9am to 9pm and 10am to 7pm on Sundays.

In winter it would be open until 8pm from Monday to Wednesday, til 9pm Thursday to Saturday and from 10am to 6pm on Sundays.

The 259 Sandy Bay Rd site was in formerly a Chickenfeed discount store, before becoming Shiploads in 2013.