When news broke back in March that a development application had been lodged for the site of the longstanding pub and live music venue Crown & Anchor, public outrage came hard and fast. There were torrents of signatures added to a Change.org petition, public rallies, vocal Facebook groups, and even a specialty beer dedicated to the cause.
At a rally held over the weekend – which saw 2000 people march through the streets, with speeches from South Australia Premier Peter Malinauskas and musicians performing from the back of a truck – it seemed that the campaign to save the “Cranker” had been successful. At the rally it was announced that an agreement had been made between the state government, community organisers and Singaporean developers Wee Hur. This prompted one organiser to take a sharpie to a sign to correct the “Save the Cranker” slogan to read “Saved the Cranker”.
But for lovers of the local pub and live music scene, the agreement isn’t an unqualified victory.
The deal announced by Malinauskas on Sunday introduced “special-purpose legislation to secure the long-term future of the Crown & Anchor Hotel as a live music venue and provide ongoing protection for key live music pubs in the City of Adelaide against noise complaints from future residents”. However, this doesn’t halt the development, which is for proposed student accommodation. Instead of demolishing the Crown & Anchor, the development will go ahead at a site adjoining the hotel. It will now be 29 storeys high (10 storeys higher than originally planned) and will demolish neighbouring venues Roxie’s and Chateau Apollo. The development will cost an additional $150 million, and planning officials have promised to fast-track Wee Hurr’s development application.
As part of the deal the developers will be able to partially demolish and restore the pub’s live music room to improve sound proofing. The pub will also have to close for a period to allow the construction of the student housing development.
The closure will be limited to a maximum of two years and the Cranker’s current operators will be given the opportunity to return to the venue when work is completed, if they wish.
“We were never going to contemplate an option that would compromise further investment in our city from developers, who are building accommodation the state so desperately needs,” Malinauskas said of the deal.
On the Save the Cranker Facebook page there was mixed reaction, with one commenter saying, “It’s a shitty deal polished up as a win”, while another encouraged others to “shelve the scepticism and be glad it hasn’t been a landslide towards the developers”.
