NEW FULLER THEATRE

Evening Star, Issue 19666, 20 September 1927, Page 2

NEW FULLER THEATRE

A restart was made last month with tho structure over St. James Theatre, sa.vs the ‘Daily Guardian,’ Sydney. For many months work was at a standstill. Some rumors had it that finance was tho trouble; others that tho delay was due to the discovery that at one side of the building the Fullers had encroached on a little land outside the area owned by them. Sir Benjamin Fuller stales that there is not the slightest foundation for any such reports. “At first,” ho explains, “it was intended to erect a theatre over St. Janies Theatre—a roof-garden theatre. We decided not to go on with it. Then we proposed to use the upper portion foj; showrooms and offices. For these there is so great a demand around this quarter that we are going to shift our head offices, at tho corner of King and Elizabeth streets, to Fullers’ Theatre, in Castlereagh street, and turn the vacated premises to ordinary commercial use. When we changed our plans we found that tho foundations—which would have had to carry, in an upstairs theatre, a mere shell—would not take showrooms and offices up to the limit in height allowed by law. So it became the problem of tho engineers to strengthen the foundations further and determine precisely to what elevation wo could go with tho utmost safety. “ The difficulty has now been solved to tho extent that ive shall be able to get 75 per cent, of tho space the building would have given us if we could have gone to the full legal height. Work in connection with the foundations is well forward; building operations from St. James Theatre up were commenced to-day, and within twelve months my ambition should be realised —the bnilcling finished, with tho Union Jack flying from a polo on top. A slight cause of delay was tho absence in America of the designer, Mr Henry E. White. He has returned with ideas that must add to tho beauty and completeness of the structure. With St. James out of tho way wc shall tear down tho present corner block (King and Elizabeth streets) and pub up something really worthy of the Sydney that is to bo.”