OPINION: A pigeon place forever or can Newcastle Post Office still be saved?

So replied Newcastle Post Office (PO) owner Jerry Schwarz last week in response to inquiries about progress and a timeframe for when the community might expect to see the 1903 building open and functioning.

Empty for more than two decades, the PO remains surrounded by hoardings with little sign of construction activity helping things move to that wonderful endpoint.

Last July, Dr Schwarz told the Newcastle Herald he hoped the Aboriginal Cultural Centre planned for the PO would be open by the middle of this year.

Back in 2017, I wrote in this column that "the landmark building is now little more than a gaping sore - an imploding urinal that stands as a crumbling monument to inertia, very bad decisions and ongoing buck passing." I wasn't alone in my optimism when Dr Schwarz purchased the building almost four years ago. Surely the historic sandstone building would be restored to something resembling its former glory within a few years.

Sydney developer Sean Ngu, who bought the PO from the federal government in 2002, claimed work on the PO was imminent on numerous occasions. Such work never eventuated.

But Mr Ngu made millions from the PO's sale to a dying Labor government in 2011.

Then planning minister Tony Kelly tried to gain retrospective funding approval for a reported $4.25million purchase weeks before the state election, after it was bought without cabinet approval.

Letter writers to this paper weren't happy that the building had been sitting empty for a decade and some saw it as the symbolic representation of the city's decay.

The state Coalition that annihilated Labor in the 2011election had no plans for the inherited PO - probs too busy arranging invites to the developer orgy about to be unleashed upon the jewel in the Asia-Pacific - and the Awabakal Land Council (ALC) successfully claimed the building in 2014 following a failed claim three years earlier.

The ALC had big plans for the PO's future but were unable to realise those aspirations. The state Coalition threw in $150k in 2017 to help the ALC to stabilise the building. Taxpayers in NSW had, within six years, shelled out almost $4.5 million for a flash pigeon toilet. The ALC then sold what had become a trashed building to Dr Schwarz in 2018 for a reported $3.5 million.

Dr Schwarz has a track record for successful investment and multi-million developments. He came a potential saviour with deep pockets, who saw Newcastle as "having enormous tourism and business potential." He said his restoration plans for the PO "will see the community totally involved".

Surely, he could breathe new life into this city's most shamefully neglected and vandalised building - the crumbling carbuncle on the backside of Hunter Street.

When Dr Schwarz's DA for the PO was approved by the City of Newcastle in February 2020, he said he hoped to have part of the building opened by the end of that year, and the rest of the building opened by the end of 2021.

So where does the project currently sit? When can the hoardings come down and when might the PO be even partially opened? The PO requires a construction certificate for building work to get underway. The construction certificate can't be obtained because the heritage report is not complete. Dr Schwarz advised pigeons have reinfested the building and the heritage report can't be completed because there is now "a full layer of pigeon shit to remove, before it is habitable to allow our heritage consultants to enter."

While COVID, excessive rain, new leaks, asbestos, lead paint and pigeons have all contributed to ensuring the need for a beyond-Herculean effort to see the PO accessible, there is now no specific timeframe for when the PO might be even partially open once again. Dr Schwarz said "the past two years have been stressful" and the restoration is "a massive job which becomes bigger with every delay" but that he "remains committed to restoring this icon of Newcastle for the Awabakal and wider Newcastle community".

We've waited more than 20 years for a re-opening of the Newcastle PO. And without a timeframe for partial or total completion of the PO being provided by the man in charge, it's just as well the wider Newcastle community can fall back on a mountain of waiting experience when it comes to seeing the old PO breathe new life.

Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content: