Developers Pall Mall Nominees have a demolition permit from the City of Greater Bendigo and plan to rejuvenate the historic Beehive building, originally used as the Bendigo Mining Exchange.

Pall Mall Nominees director Graham McMahon said the definition of the permit sounded more drastic than the reality, which would include a lot of stripping out of the internal parts of the building.

Related: Former mining exchange sold

No significant structural changes will occur at the heritage-listed building.

The ‘strip back’ work would take two months, and the renovation part of the project is expected to take a further five, before it’s handed over to a lessee who would fit out the area.

Plans include reopening Allan’s Walk between Hargreaves Mall and Pall Mall, creating a number of function spaces on the first floor, and having an open space on the ground floor which could be used by an anchor tenant in the hospitality industry. 

That tenant is close to being signed, according to Mr McMahon. 

Melbourne-based builder DBG, which has completed projects for the National Gallery of Victoria and the Windermere Hotel, Kangaroo Flat, will renovate the building.

Since plans to develop the building were revealed earlier this year, Mr McMahon said the community response has been positive. 

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Works to upgrade the building’s facade will be completed at a later date, he said.

The site was bought by Pall Mall Nominees from the City of Greater Bendigo in 2015.

The council purchased the building in 1999 with the assistance of a state government grant, taking on a stewardship role to repair the building to make it attractive to potential buyers, and spent $1 million on repair works on the building, including an upgrade of the facade, over the course of 15 years.

The plan to reopen Allan’s Walk follows a recent planning application to the COGB by the owner of the Backhaus Arcade to alter foot traffic through the central Bendigo arcade in an attempt to stop the area  becoming “another Killians Walk”. 

The owner, who purchased Backhaus Arcade from the Backhaus Estate in December, plans to extend a shopfront across the pedestrian walkway at the Mitchell Street end, causing the arcade to effectively end at an existing comic book store with access from Lyttleton Terrace.