One of Armidale’s hottest pieces of real estate, the old courthouse building, has come up for sale and will be auctioned at noon on Monday December 17. It is a property sitting on the corner of Beardy and Faulkner streets with mall frontage.
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The biggest question seems to be what can be done with it and opinions about that seem to be very common because everyone seems to have one. Like most purpose built buildings it would be hard to adapt to other uses.
Local Historian Graham Wilson said the early courthouse was built in 1860 and listed by Armidale Regional Council in its LEP so was a heritage item. He thought the building occupied a very significant position in terms of heritage value, being close to the Post office the Empire Hotel and the Bank Of New South Wales.
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"It's sad in the sense that the government wants to sell the building off," he said.
"On the other hand, of course, if a building is left for a significant period of time it does deteriorate very quickly."
A spokesman for the Armidale Shire Council said there was a pending application for State heritage listing and Local MP Adam Marshall said he fully supported that. He said he knew council was interested in acquiring the building and said he would prefer to see it remain in public hands.
Mr Marshall said the issue arose before he was elected as the Member. When construction of the new courthouse began in Moore Street, the agreement was as soon as it was finished the old courthouse would be sold to offset the costs of its construction.
"What we've had since then is some protracted legal issues with regards to one Aboriginal land claim under the NSW Lands Rights Act, a claim under the Federal Native Title legislation, both of which were refused and not appealed. And then an issue with needing to legally subdivide off the bus stop and the public toilets that council owned located on the [old] courthouse land."
Mr Wilson said he hoped the new owners would realise the heritage value of the building and were very sensitive to its re-adaptive use so there was no destruction of its heritage value.
"It certainly has rooms which could be used as office space, but the courtroom itself is a significant size and it's full of important timber structures that were used as part of the courthouse," he said.
"Going back to early times there would be a lot of cedar inside the building because when governments build buildings they used quality timbers."