In need of repair: Owner Nirma Taluja inspects the damage inside the decrepit former Fisher's Ghost Restaurant on Queen Street. Picture: Simon Bennett
WITH the former Fisher's Ghost Restaurant failing to sell at auction last month, the owner is ready to give revamping it another shot.
Owner Nirma Taluja said she was still looking at expressions of interest for the site on Queen Street but if buyers weren't interested in developing the site then she would try it again herself.
"All we want is something to be done about this place," Dr Taluja told the Advertiser.
"If the council let me do the medical [practice] and cut the trees, I'm ready to go again."
The restaurant dates back to the 1830s and has also been used as a flour mill, a shop and a private hospital.
Dr Taluja said she did not have enough money to just restore the restaurant, and relied on also putting a 10-storey building of aged care accommodation behind the restaurant.
"I'm being reasonable," Dr Taluja said. "I haven't got any money left, otherwise the bank will take control of the whole thing."
She said old trees behind the restaurant were full of insects and in the way of her development but Campbelltown Council had not allowed her to remove them.
Iftekhar Abdullah from Ideas Design, who Dr Taluja plans to hire as the architect for the site, said its location near the Campbelltown Arts Centre had great potential.
"It could be a mixed use development, which means some kind of commercial and residential, so that it makes the city more vibrant," Mr Abdullah said.
"If it's completely commercial, in the evening no one is there.
"If it's mixed use, it brings life."
He said because of the restaurant's local significance, he was in the process of discussing its restoration with specialist heritage architects.
Campbelltown Council general manager Paul Tosi said no one had spoken to the council about putting a 10-storey building on the site.
"We would have to consider it in light of what is there and how all that would complement each other," Mr Tosi said.
He said the application to cut down the trees was refused because they were part of the restaurant's heritage-listed area.
"They were considered to be part of the fabric of the whole heritage item," he said.
Before last month's auction, Southwest Property Centre principal Frank Palazzolo said potential buyers had shown little interest in preserving or retaining the old restaurant.