I liked this place after going there for afterwork drinks, and small bands played here regularly. Also, the Soho nightclub (formerly YU) inside owned by hotelier Andrew Lazarus was a great place to go in the 1990's and 2000's, with acts like Avicii, Hardwell, Basement Jaxx and Benny Benassi performing there.
Sadly that all came a cropper when the son, Luke Lazarus, was initially found guilty in March 2015 of raping Saxon Mullins, an 18-year old virgin, behind the Soho two years earlier. He spent 11 months in prison but was granted a judge-alone retrial which acquitted him in 2017. The NSW Attorney General referred the state’s sexual consent laws for review after an ABC Four Corners report on Mullins aired in 2018.
The Soho closed in 2015, with the owners citing NSW lockout laws. The hotel sold in 2016 to property developer Phillip George who spent nearly $30 million purchasing six adjoining properties. He acquired the Soho site for $10.2 million and later that year bought the next door brothel, the Golden Apple, for $5.5 million, and four terraces on Brougham Street behind the hotel.
The Piccadilly is height restricted after the 1970's imposed Victoria Street green bans, and heritage listed too, and considered unsuitable for apartments. A $22.3 million plan was lodged in 2021 for a luxury hotel, although later applications to allow the Brougham Street residential buildings to trade as a hotel/motel, granted in 2023, indicates options over adjoining properties and further changes.
The site previously housed the Austral Club, which dated back to the 1800s. It was purchased in 1936 by brewery Tooth and Co, which knocked it down and built the Piccadilly Hotel in inter-war functionalist style in 1939, with “Piccadilly Hotel” inscribed in Art Deco font. There were major renovations in the 1990's and 2000's, including the conversion of a floor into the Soho nightclub.
I was fond of the leather chairs. A better photo was planned, but the episode was sordid, the foliage grew thicker and the properties have been boarded up pending future development.
