05/11/2025
24 July 2025
“They’ve been ordered to rebuild the heritage parts of the old Corkman pub. What they’ve done is build it out of pre-cast concrete instead of bricks and bluestone, It’s not even close to an authentic rebuild. It’s a Temu Corkman.”
For the community group that rallied behind rebuilding the 159-year-old pub after its illegal demolition, the outcome is a bitter irony. “Our tagline was ‘brick by brick’,” Wallace notes dryly, “not ‘precast concrete by precast concrete’.” Dumcan Wallace and Tim Staindl were law Students in 2016 and the Corkman was their watering hole of choice.
A final VCAT enforcement order in 2022 seemed to be the endgame, compelling them to rebuild the pub “as nearly as practicable to the condition they were in immediately before their unlawful demolition”.
But three years later – and already three months past the most recent completion deadline of May 1 for the external building – the developers are yet again seeking an extension at a tribunal hearing to be held next week.
In an affidavit, the developers claim recent delays were to “ensure the historical integrity and accuracy”, after finding “discrepancies” in drawings.
The developers need approval for the timeline extension from Minister for Planning Sonya Kilkenny, Melbourne City Council and Staindl and Wallace.
In a background statement provided to The Age, the City of Melbourne confirmed it will not oppose the developers’ request to push their completion deadline to August 2025, citing “the substantial progress made” at the site, before adding that the final “decision rests with VCAT”.
Staindl and Wallace, though, have filed their opposition with VCAT – their core complaint being the material of the new build itself.
They argue the tribunal order allowing for “new materials” in the rebuild was to permit new bricks and bluestone, not a cheaper, entirely different mode of construction that erases the building’s authentic character.
Shaqiri and Kutlesovski told The Age after nine years of debate over what they had done in 2016, they just want to move on, and that criticism from Wallace and Staindl was premature.
“These guys are not builders. What’s there now is not the finished product,” Shaqiri said.
He promised the pair were taking great care to rebuild what they had destroyed as best they could. “We found tiles from northern England that match exactly what was on the facade.”
Kutlesovski said the rebuild was almost over and he hoped the building would return to its original use as a pub once they had completed the build and put it out for lease.
Lachlan Molesworth, the chair of the National Trusts of Australia, said that reproducing the Corkman faithfully was not just about aesthetics. “It’s about accountability and deterrence and also about permanence and durability. A proper reconstruction acts as a strong deterrent to unlawful heritage destruction and these sorts of criminal actions.”
