John Feros’ JDA Collective is battling the backlash of tackling a trendy eastern suburbs pub, as clickbait coverage spotlights a stop work order on the renovation of Paddington’s Unicorn.
There has been a pub known as the Unicorn on the Oxford Street corner since the early 1880s. It was bought by Tooth & Co in 1936 and rebuilt in the Art Deco style, completed in 1941. In 2020 it was recognised for its heritage status by Woollahra Council, as one of the oldest pubs in the suburb.
It once sported its original Art Deco dining room, with recessed overhead lighting, but this was removed by previous operators, prior to it becoming known in recent years as Fringe Bar, which was famed for its Monday night comedy acts and eastern suburbs socialite crowd.
In 2024 JDA purchased the restapled freehold going concern, surrounded by major redevelopment projects and the high fashion retailers of Glenmore Road, for circa $10 million from freehold owner George Kazzi and operators Mary’s Burgers.
Feros told PubTIC at the time the group was excited to enter the inner east pub market – “especially with such iconic heritage as the Fringe Bar”.
Late 2024 JDA announced the Unicorn would soon be closing for renovations, just prior to the development application being approved in December.
Scheduled works included replacing the main bar, toilets, internal stairs and kitchen, refurbishment of the courtyard and installation of an elevator.
But starting the work in January, problems were soon discovered. Engineers found concrete cancer in the ground and first floor slabs and sections of the roof, determining that they were “structurally compromised”.
“The building was in genuine peril,” Feros says. “Without addressing it the hotel was going to fall down.”
Construction crews worked to remove the problem areas, with the knowledge of Council, on the basis of needing to protect the heritage structure.
However, in February it’s understood the heritage authority got involved and put pressure on Woollahra Council to tell the owners to stop work, issuing two development control orders.
In March JDA lodged a revised DA to amend the details so it could undertake emergency structural remedial works.
Late April media got whiff of the Council order and posed that illegal work had been done on the beloved pub before the hapless Council “had a chance to approve or deny” the requirement, bemoaning the loss of the (concrete, not original) floors, and the stairs, which were always slated for removal.
It was lamented that “Only the external heritage shell” remained of the heritage façade building.
Councillor Harriet Price was quoted as questioning why removal work had been done without proper heritage oversight.
“The opportunity to salvage and facilitate the reuse of internal heritage fabric to create a thorough archival record of the interiors may have been lost.”
JDA keeps a stable of pubs across NSW and Queensland, including the Great Southern and Mountbatten Hotel in the Sydney CBD, and the Mermaid Beach Tavern and Gold Coast Tavern in the north.
Poignantly, following it being gutted by fire in 2017, early 2021 JDA purchased the mighty General Gordon of Sydenham, and reopened it – having rebuilt it almost identical to how it was.
The Unicorn will similarly continue its purpose in life, slated to be a classic ground floor pub, likely with accommodation on the upper level now the architect tenants have been removed.
Feros says he is hoping for the go-ahead authority “either this or next” that will allow them to continue, and with luck see the Unicorn ride again by the summer months.
“We’re working with council to get approval to on emergency works basis, so we can reinstate the floors and permanently support it – on a structural basis – to protect the heritage façade.
“All that we have done is to protect the heritage and fabric of the building. In the end it will be no different from what was originally approved.
“We’re not in the business of wrecking heritage sites.”
