Local heritage experts have expressed their shock over indications a significant 152-year-old building in Geelong’s Woolstores Industrial Heritage Area will be demolished to make way for the proposed Geelong Convention and Exhibition Centre.
Despite reassurances the building would be incorporated into the convention centre’s design, images released by the federal, state and local government last week showed no sign of the two-storey Waverley building on the corner of Gheringhap Street and Western Beach Road.
Geelong and Region Branch National Trust representative Mrs Jennifer Bantow OAM said her members were “devastated”.
“We’ve been involved in consultation over the centre’s plans for about two years, and the Office of the Victorian Architect advised us months ago that Waverley would be incorporated into the design,” Mrs Bantow said.
“Now we discover the assurances we received from both state and local government officers were untrue, and that Waverley’s demolition will be another example of authorities not wanting to conserve the character of our local distinctive identity.
“This will take us right back to the 1980s when Geelong also lost the unique Bow Truss Woolstores to the wrecker’s ball.”
Mrs Bantow said convention centre designers may not have understood the significance of the building to Geelong’s heritage as a port city.
“To retain the character and identity of our city we need to look after these places in this port area,” she said.
The building, constructed in 1871 by prolific Geelong architects Alexander Davidson and George Henderson, is noted as one of the earliest houses in Australia to feature cavity-wall construction, which reduces damp and assists with thermal and noise insulation.
Waverley sits within a City of Greater Geelong heritage overlay with an individual citation and has been altered and extended over the past century, with Deakin University receiving a National Trust Heritage Award in 2014 for its restoration work on the building.
National Trust member Jack Herd called on Development Victoria to revise its convention centre plans and incorporate Waverley into the design.
“It would be an insult to the legacy of Geelong’s prolific architectural history to knock over one of the most misunderstood but important pieces of that legacy,” he said.
Regional Development Victoria and Geelong MP Christine Couzens were contacted for comment.
