Legacy prepares for move
THE organisation supporting widows and dependants of deceased and incapacitated exservice personnel in Geelong is searching for a new home.
Geelong Legacy Club has put its Ryrie Street home on the market, the first stage of a scheme to downsize.
Murray House, at 180-182 Ryrie Street, has been Geelong Legacy’s home since 1946.
The property was donated by Florence Craig in tribute to her nephew and commando Norman Murray, who died in service in 1942.
Darcy Jarman agent Tim Darcy said it offered 822sq m of floorspace over two levels, with a ground floor shop leased to a beauty salon.
“The first floor area is totally vacant at the moment,” Mr Darcy said.
He is quoting a price range of $2.25m to $2.5m.
“It’s been offered under an expressions of interest process so we can identify a party who we can work with hand-inglove,” he said.
“They’re proposing to take a two-year lease back, giving them two years to transition into another property, which provides a buyer with a shortterm income stream of $70,000 a year net while they work on a vision or scheme to reposition this asset.”
The 711sq m property includes the two-storey building, a hall, meeting rooms and car parks with a separate frontage to Market Street.
The Activity Zoning
provided a raft of possibilities for future use, Mr Darcy said.
“Someone is going to have to roll up their sleeves to reposition the building. It’s got many of its old and original character features, which give a blank canvas to work with but plenty of scope to reposition the asset,” he said.
Legacy board member Des Downey said the property was too big for the organisation.
“In the 1950s and 60s, when we were caring for up to 600
children as well as 3500 widows, it got a fair bit of use,” Mr Downey said.
Today, Legacy’s support included paying students’ school fees and providing computers, he said.
Mr Downey said the charity supported about 700 widows in the region, but the number of children was rising.
“Our problem is to find something that is suitable,” he said.
“There is still a need for us,
even though it’s different to what it was 50 years ago.”
Geelong Legacy, formed in 1925, is the second oldest Legacy club in Australia.
“Our big thing in the 20s and 30s was for our members to go out wood cutting to chop wood for widows because no one had electric heaters or electric stoves, they were all wood stoves, so we used to provide as much firewood as we could. But times have changed,” he said.