Les Lees building in Liverpool St set for $1 million renovation – and major new tenants

The owner of a heritage-listed building in the Hobart CBD is planning a $1 million overhaul to return the building to its original glory.

Silverleaf director Gerard O’Brien said the redesign was about “making the property functional for today’s era”.

A MILLION-dollar renovation of a heritage-listed Hobart CBD building aims to bring the property back to its former glory, says the owner.

The 1840s-built property at 109 Liverpool St currently houses multiple retail and cafe tenants, the primary business being men’s clothing retailer Les Lees.

West Australian company Silverleaf Investments, which also owns the Cat and Fiddle Arcade, bought the building in 2017.

Perth-based Meyer Shircore Architects has submitted a development application to the Hobart City Council on behalf of Silverleaf for the redevelopment and refurbishment of the building for new tenants – including a new ground floor tenancy leased to the Commonwealth Bank of Australia.

The building, which is permanently listed on the Tasmanian Heritage Register, had a long association with the Mather family drapery business.

Silverleaf director Gerard O’Brien said there was a lot of wasted space in the building in its current format.

“The whole thing wasn’t functionally laid out for what had been a big department store,” he said.

“We’ve tried to work out a way to utilise all the area and fix the whole facade up to bring it back to its former glory.

“We’ve relaid it out – similar to what we did with Cat and Fiddle Arcade – redesigning it and getting people in the right places and making the property functional for today’s era.”

Les Lees owner Edward Harry said the proposal represented a new chapter for his store.

“I’m thrilled because the owners have enormous pride in restoring older buildings so the building itself will see some significant improvements,” he said.

“As far as Les Lees is concerned we will lose some floor space, but we’ll be occupying a substantial part of the building and we’ll have a new street frontage opening directly onto Liverpool St. We don’t need the floor space we’ve got to be honest.

“We’ll be doing a refurbishment and many years ago the former property owner put a false ceiling in the main part of the shop and that’s coming out, which will reveal the original Mathers ceiling.

“With the Commonwealth Bank next door and other new tenancies, I think it’s going to be terrific.”

Speaking more generally of development in Hobart, Mr O’Brien said he had seen big changes in the 15 years since Silverleaf began buying local properties.

“There was 20 years where nothing really happened at all in Hobart – when we got there, there was no activity,” he said.

“Now, you look down the street and you see eight cranes over the skyline and it’s phenomenal.

“The most important thing is to keep looking forward because otherwise what will happen is Parliament Square will be finished and so will the hospital and then in 18 months time there will be nothing.

“You’ve got all these trades built up and trained and we have to make sure we start planning for that next phase.”