Showcase Theatre 2008

Former Showcase Theatre, Wolfe Street Newcastle, in December 2008

Margaret and Theo Goumas ran the three-screen Showcase Theatre in Wolfe Street site for 11 years.

They were previous operators of the Kensington and Lyrique cinemas  in the 1970s and the former Roma Theatre in Hunter Street.

A dispute about non-compliance with fire regulations concerning an outer wall of the cinema building that faced the inside of an adjacent shop.

Though maintenance of the wall was not an issue when Council approved the the cinema in 1996, and no problems were ever identified in fire inspections, GPT said council made an error by omitting the wall when it granted consent.

GPT Group told the cinema to cease trading "in the interest of public safety.”

GPT bought the Showcase and surrounding buildings as part of its major proposed redevelopment of the Newcastle CBD with the mammoth proposed Hunter Central Mall, a walled private shopping complex of such scale it was to consume King Street and its roofline would broach the height of the cathedral floor level.

See Throsby’s rant “GPT’s Newcastle ~ A Citizen Objects”