SYDNEY’S WHITE ELEPHANT.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19905, 27 September 1926, Page 11

SYDNEY’S WHITE ELEPHANT.

QUEEN VICTORIA MARKETS. (From Oub Oivx Cobeespondhxt.) SYDNEY, September 16. Tbs proposal of tbc Lord Mayor that the City Council should lease by public tender, the Queen Victoria Mbrket building for a period of 50 years, serves to direct attention to a massive pile which is generally known us Sydney’s white elephant. Its imposing facade in George street belies its appearance internally. It has a Queen Anno front, so to speak, end a Mary Ann interior. For yearn it has been a dead weight on llio council. Not a few thought it would havo served a purpose in connection with tho city railway, but the nearest underground station will have its entrances and exits only a few yards away, right in front of the Town Hall. Taking the income and expenditure, the building has shown a loss since 1900 of more than £211,000, despite tbs fact that it is in the very heart of the city. Even a competition for designs for remodelling the building has recently been attended with trouble, for it ended in a legal action which was compromised at a con of about £7OOO. One of the latest proposals is that an hotel license should bo permissible in the building to the successful tenderer for the lease of it. That, it anv late, ought to make it a little more popular. The Lord Mayor's suggestion is that the successful tenderer should be obliged to spend £250,000 upon improvements to the building during the first 20 years of tenure. That condition, if it is imposed, will probably make prospective tenderers a little shy. Perhaps some genius may be able to make it pay*