Club Bondi Junction’s Dream Now a Reality

Last Thursday, dignitaries — including Waverley Mayor Paula Masselos and Coogee MP Marjorie O’Neill — joined the Club’s Board of Directors to officially celebrate the venue’s much-anticipated reopening.

In 2020 work began on the 13-storey mixed-use redevelopment, which had been in the pipeline since 2014 when Waverley Council re-zoned the area to allow more height.

Club Bondi Junction President Bill Harrigan was thrilled that the vision had finally been realised, after years of lobbying Waverley Council to ensure the Club’s long-term survival.

“We could see the writing on the wall for us and so in 2005 the Treasurer and the Board at the time decided we had to do something to survive, so we wanted to develop, but unfortunately this area was zoned at about five storeys in height,” Harrigan told the gathered crowd.

“It wasn’t feasible for us to do a development with that zone… so from about 2006, every time a new mayor was elected, I beat a path to their door, I could name them all, and asked them ‘when are you going to let us develop?’

“[In 2014] I received a call from the Mayor of Waverley, Sally Betts at the time, telling me — ‘great news, we’ve re-zoned the area, you can go to 10 storeys’ — so then things started to happen.”

The development consists of the Club on the ground floor and level one, with 80 apartments on floors two to 10. All of the units were sold before the excavation had even started.

Long-term tenancy leases have also been signed, with the café operators on the ground floor, Leaf Café, along with a beauty business on the second floor, Salon Lane.

In celebrating the launch of the new precinct, Harrigan paid tribute to Easts Group CEO Joe Kelly, who accommodated Club Bondi Junction’s members during the construction period.

“While we were closed, we thought ‘what are we going to do?’ — so I went and spoke to Joe Kelly, he’s here tonight, and his manager at the time, and they offered to take on our membership base as social members until the Club re-opened, so thanks Joe… we had four-and-a-half years over there!” Harrigan said.

Waverley Mayor Paula Masselos congratulated Harrigan and his Board of Directors on the hard-fought journey to get to this point.

“It has been a labour of love. I remember meeting Bill fairly soon after I became a councillor and straight away it was about the vision about what he had for this place,” she told the crowd.

“We would come here after the Waverley Council Anzac Day event and I remember the building, all very tight and tired, and so now seeing this compared to what it was; it’s breathtaking and it’s beautiful… this is going to be the beating heart of the community.”

Mayor Masselos added that Club Bondi Junction is now well equipped to deliver on a local push to turn the area into a thriving nighttime economy.

ClubsNSW Chair Sallianne Faulkner, who was also in attendance, congratulated the Board on creating a venue that will positively contribute to the local community.

“With the cost-of-living crisis, now more than ever clubs are there — whether it’s simply by providing an affordable meal or helping to make kids’ sport affordable for families,” she told the crowd.

“This local community is all the better thanks to the long-term vision you’ve had for the Club. Congratulations to Bill, the Board and the entire team here, I wish you every success in the years ahead.”