investigation
Subiaco Hay Street buildings: Behind the heritage debacle and crumbling buildings shutting down businesses

It’s the middle of a weekday on one of Perth’s major thoroughfares to the western suburbs, but there’s no traffic. A leaf blows across the bitumen, unhindered, bringing to mind the proverbial tumbleweed on a desolate desert road. The council calls this precinct “the beating heart of Subiaco”. But that heart is still. The lifeblood that keeps it pumping — shoppers, diners and commuters — have stopped coming, cut off by a “temporary” road closure that’s so far lasted more than two weeks. For at least one business owner, this is breaking point. They’ve spent almost two decades here, pouring their blood, sweat and tears into a small business that’s supported their family. The past few years have been devastating but since the road closed, it’s impossible to go on. Sales are down 50 per cent. The owner has put an offer on a store in a nearby suburb. If it’s accepted, they’ll abandon the seemingly doomed strip and take the extraordinary and burdensome step of paying rent in two places until the useless Subiaco lease runs out. Hay Street was closed between Catherine Street and Rokeby Road on February 12, after two structural engineering reports found century-old buildings on its edge were at risk of collapse. It came out of the blue for the dozen or so retail businesses lining the road, who were suddenly cut off from their customers. Most were already struggling with Subiaco’s long-waning lustre and falling patronage, especially since they were forced to fight for survival during COVID-induced lockdowns. Now they’re caught up in a tangled web of broken buildings, council bureaucracy, and an eleventh-hour heritage hold-up that threatens to extend their agony indefinitely. “We’re caught in limbo,” Luanne Balaba said. The young mum, together with her husband, started the once-thriving Vietnamese fusion cafe Baguette Me Not on the Hay Street strip. Sales dropped dramatically when the road closed. “It impacts us hugely,” she said. “The customers and UberEats drivers — anyone wanting to access us, can’t access us at all. We just want to know what will happen next and when it will actually end.” Yet there’s no timeline for when that will be. The road was partially closed on February 6, two days after the buildings’ owner Sanur presented the city with an engineering report that said the buildings were “at risk of imminent collapse”. Giant cracks snake up the wall of the buildings at 424-436 Hay Street, pushing bricks apart by as much as 8cm. Sanur applied for a demolition order but the city commissioned its own report by a separate engineering company. When it was handed in on February 12, it also found the buildings from 424-436, and 440 Hay Street were in an active state of “progressive collapse”. Neither report could pinpoint the cause. So the second team of engineers recommended the road in front of the buildings be closed entirely — “until such time as the facades can be safely demolished, or otherwise assessed as being safe and stable by appropriately qualified professionals”. The city acted swiftly and closed a section of Hay Street “out of an abundance of caution”, according to acting chief executive Cliff Frewing. Just one week after lockdown, surrounding businesses found their major access way shut down indefinitely. “This is ridiculous,” one business owner said. “We’ve been through a lot in the last few years. We didn’t need this to happen.” The council called a special meeting for February 15, urgently seeking a resolution that would lead to the road being reopened. That same day the Heritage Council received an application nominating the buildings at 424-436 and 440 Hay Street for heritage status. It’s the first step in an assessment process that can last months. The identity of the nominator is protected but The Sunday Times understands it was lodged by an associate of Save Subi, which describes itself as a community group that “wants Subiaco planned thoughtfully, holistically and respectfully”. It does so by campaigning against change. Supporters praise the group for its dedication and advocacy but adversaries say it will do anything to prevent development in the historic City of Subiaco. Two Save Subi affiliates, likely emboldened by a local newspaper that rails against multi-storey development, tendered statements advocating for the buildings’ protection in the special council meeting. “The question is, is this heritage worth saving?” former Subiaco councillor Mark Tonti said at the meeting. “I believe that it is.” His partner, Jackie Greenshields, also spoke up. “The buildings in Hay Street have stood for over 100 years,” she said. “(They) are very original based on the research I have just completed, and are ready for new life in our Rokeby Road and Hay Street Heritage Area.” In an unusual move, Ms Greenshields was thanked by deputy mayor Stephanie Stroud — one of six councillors publicly endorsed by Save Subi in the 2019 council election — but the buildings’ owner disagrees. “They’re just old, there’s nothing heritage in them,” Sanur director Cara McIntyre said. Their positions represent a major division within the historic town, between progress and preservation. While many fall somewhere in the middle, the loudest voices dwell at the extreme ends. The progressives claim the preservers have strong backing in the form of the local independent newspaper, The Subiaco Post. Its website states it rarely expresses an opinion, but one local told The Sunday Times it’s an “anti-development platform”. “The claim the Post is anti-development is a response to our policy of always putting the ratepayer and resident view as well as that of the developer,” the paper’s editor Bret Christian said. “ThePost is always careful to provide balance in its stories. It is sometimes impossible when the other side declines to respond to our questions, as has been the case until this week, with Sanur. “Developers have big budgets that hire PR and lobby firms to influence government ... residents, ratepayers and others with a stake in Subiaco have only the Post.” In the lead-up to the 2019 council elections it ran a major story with the headline “Subi still needs saving” that featured founders of Save Subi, spruiking their six candidates. The special council meeting ended with a resolution to engage a third structural engineer, with an aim to determine whether the structures could be stabilised in a way to “preserve the heritage value”. The buildings were under a city demolition order when Sanur bought them in 1985. Instead of knocking them down, it renovated. “At the time Sanur spent a lot of time and money rebuilding a lot of those little shops,” Ms McIntyre said. With no heritage obligations at the time, the brick facing was rendered and painted the colours of the Danish flag, simply because Sanur’s founder Barrie Le Pley wanted to. Most of the damaged decorative glass was replaced. Mirrored pillars between the windows were installed in 1986. “Much of the fabric is fake — essentially, it’s been rebuilt,” Ms McIntyre said. “They’ve been really well maintained, but they’ve just reached the end of their life.” On Friday, the Heritage Council found in favour of Sanur — that the buildings at 424-436 Hay Street don’t have State heritage value. Their next-door neighbour at 440 Hay Street will take longer to assess. The double-storey building — painted blue and white for the colours of the Finnish flag (again, just for fun) — was one of the first movie theatres in Western Australia. Regardless of what the Heritage Council decides about their future, all the buildings are protected by local laws. Since 2013, they’ve been classified as “moderate” contributors to a City of Subiaco Heritage Area, which essentially protects the buildings in a similar way to those with State heritage status. It’s another complication for Sanur in its attempt to get the green light to have the buildings demolished, and the land they stand on redeveloped. But its directors are determined to push on. The company’s founder is a man of mystery; a notoriously private US developer and philanthropist who first dabbled in the WA real estate market when he bought the Subiaco markets in 1983. Mr Le Pley grew up in Hawaii, graduated from Yale University then went on to settle in Australia, becoming a citizen 25 years ago. He’s now believed to be one of Subiaco’s biggest land investors — owning the Nova Building and some lots behind the buildings at the centre of the controversy. It’s here he wants to build Sanur’s crowning glory: a $250 million retail and commercial precinct the company claims will create 850 construction jobs and 2000 permanent jobs when finished. The plans are advanced but can’t be assessed by the State Government until the City signs off on them because it owns a lane the Sanur development would build under and over. According to the acting chief executive, the council was never told of Sanur’s intentions before it lodged the application with the State Government. It didn’t sign off on the land last year because it has its own plans for the area — the Seddon Street Precinct. Despite the current saga to save the buildings for their apparent heritage value, the city’s own plan proposes part of 424 Hay Street is demolished to make way for a 6m-wide road. “The proposed road was included in a draft,” Mr Frewing said. “Retaining the proposed road will be considered in the finalisation of the plan.” Like the businesses that surround its planned location, the development is in limbo. The owners of those businesses are scrambling to move forward. They requested extra parking for clients. It’s been promised but not delivered. Too little too late, for the 14 shops most seriously impacted. They’ve banded together, drafting a letter to the council in support of demolition and the planned redevelopment.“The council has been given a golden opportunity and it won’t cost them a cent,” said one long-term tenant. But the web continues to tangle. The third report found the damage is not as bad as the first two suggested, and “there is a strong likelihood the facade can be remediated and retained”. It suggests 440 is especially sound, and recommends the southern lane of Hay Street reopen “immediately”. That report was handed to the City on February 19. It was released to Sanur — and made public — a week later. All lanes of Hay Street remain closed. The council will hold another special meeting on Tuesday to decide what happens next. Meanwhile, gauges installed by the first structural engineers have found the buildings are still in an “active state”, slowly tipping towards the road in front of them. The third report says the gauges are unreliable. Whether or not the buildings crumble, the businesses around them might. And the road out remains closed indefinitely.

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Subiaco Hay Street buildings: Behind the heritage debacle and crumbling buildings shutting down businesses

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Subiaco Hay Street buildings: Behind the heritage debacle and crumbling buildings shutting down businesses