A Canberra supermarket developer and his partner have given a small committee in Eden two weeks to raise $500,000 if they want to save a 108-year-old hotel from being demolished.
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John Krnc and Rodney Thompson paid $1.1 million for the Hotel Australasia, which closed in 2010, and on-sold the poker machine rights to Woolworths for an estimated $900,000.
Remarkably, the 1906 hotel has never been heritage-listed. A bland addition in 1954 covers its original, ornate facade, and its fate is all too familiar across rural towns, of empty, multi-storey hotels either being bulldozed or waiting for vandals to complete their demolition.
Eden builder Peter Whiter is leading the fight to save the hotel, proposing a deal with the developers and the Bega Shire Council to keep the pub, which flourished in the town's tuna fishing boom.
Twenty years ago, he went in there for a beer and ignored advice from a barman to stop chatting up the women and leave.
"I didn't, and was being served when I glanced up to see a fist heading my way. I dodged that, but the bar manager headed over and asked me to leave."
The locals called it the Snake Pit because of its after hours trading and sometimes shady reputation.
"The place was frequented as a base for a bikie gang. They were good patrons," Mr Whiter says.
When Mr Krnc and Mr Thompson lodged a development application, the council rejected it on heritage grounds, leading to legal action through the Land and Environment Court.
Mr Thompson expects a decision this week in his favour.
He and Mr Krnc want to resolve the issue, as they have done in Bungendore, where they are retaining a heritage home while developing a supermarket. But they can't afford to forego the 15 metres the pub occupies on a larger development site in Eden's main street, unless compensated.
Mr Thompson said a new port development would likely boost Eden's growth prospects, which was why he was investing in the town.
Mr Whiter is proposing the council waive a parking contribution worth about $500,000 in return for the developer donating the pub, and a management committee paying a peppercorn rent.
"We would put in a tapas bar; we want to use part of it for an Aboriginal art gallery and for an office for people from the Bundian Way, an old Aboriginal pathway around Two Fold Bay. This is an opportunity to have an office at one end of the walk."
The Bundian Way winds through beautiful countryside, crosses the Snowy River and connects the coast to the highest part of Australia at Mount Kosciuszko.
Mr Thompson is prepared to wait another two weeks, before starting a redevelopment for the town's third supermarket, a SupaIGA.
