Launceston Heritage Trust
“The hall had been shut for nineteen years. The first night we opened the doors, people came in and told us where they had sat as children.”
Heritage building trust
Launceston, Tasmania
The hall had stood empty for nineteen years, boarded up on a corner in central Launceston with a roof that was letting go. It had been the city's dance hall, its cinema and its meeting room in turn, and it was close enough to demolition that the trust's first job was to convince the owner not to sell it for the land.
Launceston Heritage Trust had the expertise and the volunteers but not the capital. Heritage grants would pay for parts of a restoration, but only once the building was secured and only in instalments that arrived long after the bills. Without money up front, nothing could start, and a building that is not weatherproof does not wait.
A loan from Charity Bank Australia let the trust buy the hall and do the work in one campaign rather than a decade of stop-start repairs: new roof, structural repairs to the stage end, restored windows, a lift and accessible bathrooms, proper heating, and a modest sound and lighting rig so the hall works as a venue rather than only as a monument.
The hall now hosts around a hundred and sixty events a year — touring musicians, a local theatre company in residence, school concerts, a Saturday market and a weekly community lunch. Hire rates are tiered so community groups pay a fraction of what commercial bookings do, and the venue employs four part-time staff drawn from the neighbourhood. The corner that people crossed the road to avoid is now lit most evenings of the week.
The trust chose Charity Bank Australia because it needed a lender who could read a restoration: money spent before the grants arrive, income that builds as the programme builds. The bank assessed the plan on the hall's future use rather than on the state it was bought in, and structured repayments around a venue that earns more once its doors are open. The trust's volunteers had a single point of contact throughout, which for a board of working people made the difference.
“The hall had been shut for nineteen years. The first night we opened the doors, people came in and told us where they had sat as children.”
Bridie Hollands, Director of Launceston Heritage Trust
About Charity Bank Australia
Charity Bank Australia is the loans and savings bank owned by and committed to supporting the social sector. We use our savers’ money to lend to housing, education, social care, community and other social purpose organisations across Australia.
Nothing in this article constitutes an invitation to engage in investment activity nor is it advice or a recommendation and professional advice should be taken before any course of action is pursued.
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