By NATHAN LAY
Bayside’s iconic Mentone Hotel is a step closer to reopening, with the building’s future becoming clearer.
Under the new ownership of Momentum Melbourne Developments, who acquired the building in December last year, "the Edgy" will continue to provide food and beverage services.
However, apartments are to be built on the second floor of the hotel and in the car park.
It is projected Mentone Hotel will be reopened within eight to 12 weeks under a short-term tenancy, and will be leased for three years.
In that time, a permit will be put in place for the hotel to be redeveloped and refurbished to its original state. The owner will then look to lease it out long term for 10 to 20 years once the three years are up and the refurbishment is complete.
There were initial fears the Mentone Hotel, which is now up for heritage listing, was to be turned into apartments when it closed its doors on November 17 last year.
But the owner of Mentone Hotel and managing director of Momentum Melbourne Developments, Paul Huggins, said it was never their intention to completely turn the hotel into apartments.
“We never had any intention of doing that. I think it was just hearsay and media hype,” he said.
“We think it will probably end up at 500 to 600 square metres of hotel operation downstairs, apartments upstairs and in the car park a separate project.
“It will have some food and beverage, and the food and beverage site will be predicated on the capacity of someone’s balance sheet.”
There has been a groundswell of support to keep the building from closure, with the "Save the Edgy" campaign attracting upward of 12,000 likes on Facebook.
An administrator of the Save The Edgy Facebook page, Matthew Byford, said he believed he had never seen support like this for a hotel.
“If you look at any other like place, venue, pub, club, whatever you like, none have a comparison of a following as much as the Edgy does in our community group online,” Mr Byford said.
“From a generational point of view, people who went there in the '70s, '80s and '90s have all got kids coming through.
"They don’t want to see their local pub disappear so that our kids don’t have the same experiences we had growing up.”
The building will continue to be maintained and under security surveillance until Momentum begin the restoration process.