By EMILY ROBINSON
Geelong icon The Carlton Hotel struggled for 12 months.
Then in early December the hotel’s three operators made the ultimate decision to close their venue.
The art-deco pub traded for the last time on 2 January, the same day it celebrated 11 years of management, with a goodbye party.
Built in 1849 as the Union Club, the building was renovated and reopened as the Carlton in 1937.
The closure was “due to a combination of factors”, said a spokesperson for the pub’s operators, which leased the building from “Melbourne interests”.
“There’s no blame attributed to any one of them. At the end of the day when you’re in business you have to make adjustments and we did a lot of that along the way,” the spokesperson said.
“With the lease expiring during the tail end of the 11-year period, there was no security of tenure moving forward and no incentive to reinvest into the business.”
The closure was partly due to reduced trade from a proposed $120 million redevelopment of the pub to house National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) staff and other office workers, the spokesperson said.
“There was a strong perception in the marketplace that we’d already closed.”
The spokesperson counted the Carlton among a series of local pub closures in recent years.
“Over the 11 years six or seven other hotels have closed in Geelong.
“The demand for your average garden variety pub that doesn’t have a sports bar and pokies has diminished.
“There’s also been a proliferation of bars and licensed cafes that has taken a fair percentage of the market.”
The fate of the building remains undecided after the NDIA called for new tenders for a premises to also house Department of Human Services staff.
Other building proposals are also competing to accommodate the agencies.
“It’s very frustrating,“ the Carlton spokesperson said.
“We don’t know what’s going on and we have no say in the matter – we get more information reading the papers.”
