Beating heart of city: Inside new plans for Illawarra Hotel

As Illawarra Hotel publican Ryan Aitchison climbs the stairs from the ground to the first and second floor of the Illawarra Hotel, the dusty layers of the historic building feel unavoidably present.

Not that Mr Aitchison and partner and co-publican Nikki Aitchison are the planning on donning the khaki jumpsuit of Ghostbusters anytime soon, but they are planning an exorcism - of sorts - of the pub they have run since 2022.

The pair and their backers have submitted a major development application to renovate the upper floors of the hotel, opening a new cocktail lounge and high end fine dining restaurant in the former accommodation suites.

The efforts are part of Mr Aitchison's push to turn the Wollongong CBD into a nightlife hub for the region and a destination for visitors, with the Illawarra Hotel at its beating heart.

"What we deliver will be a destination for people from West Wollongong and Bellambi, but a place for people to travel to because it is a precinct that will outshine anywhere from the Shire all the way down to the Shoalhaven," Mr Aitchison said.

Pending DA approval, the plan will be start to works in earnest in early 2025, with the plan to open the upper floors by spring.

By then, visitors to the pub will arrive to the ground floor that will be largely the same as it is now for drinks and casual dining through the day.

Upstairs, patrons will be greeted at the top of the stairs on the first floor, and have the choice to either head into the double height lounge to their left, or turn to the fine dining restaurant on their right.

The kitchen that will service these spaces and the downstairs bistro will move upstairs, from one of the smallest pub kitchens in the Illawarra to one of the largest, with a yet to be revealed head chef behind the pass. A sommelier will have the benefit of an oversized, temperature-controlled wine room, for local drops as well as something a bit more special.

As the evening progresses, the ground floor will continue to serve Wollongong's student and younger crowd, with DJs and live music potentially until late, while the acoustically separated upper areas will turn into a supper club with late night dining available past midnight upstairs.

"We really want to create different atmospheres and different areas for different people," Mr Aitchison said.

"What we don't want to do is shut down up here and push everyone downstairs to one common area, we want to keep people in the area they want to be in and then let them leave organically when they choose to."

To achieve this vision the couple - self described pub nerds - have been on a tour of venues of sorts, but are yet to find one that blends sophisticated dining in one space with a thumping nightclub in another, with the closest being the ritzy yet student favourite the Golden Sheaf in Sydney's eastern suburbs.

The call to remove the accommodation aspect was a tough one, but one necessitated by the modern standards required by guests and regulators.

"If there was a way to get accommodation here we would have done it, because that is the first and foremost critical need of Wollongong," Mr Aitchison said.

"But to try and make that work, due to the structure and the heritage we would have had to retrofit and skin the inside of the entire building and it would have cost twice as much as building a hotel anywhere else."

But, Mr Aitchison is well aware that the plans he and his partner have do not exist in isolation. He bemoans the lack of any northbound train from Wollongong station after midnight until the pre-dawn services begin and the plan to transform the pub is as much of an ambit claim to show what's possible, if governments and other bodies step up to the plate.

"The key for us with this renovation and working with [24 Hour Economy Commissioner Michael Rodrigues] and other agencies is making sure that when this opens, it'll open in a city that has hopefully done some reshaping, reforming."

As that work happens between governments, the Aitchisons will start cleaning out the former managers' quarters and staff rooms upstairs. Along the way they have no doubt there will be skeletons uncovered - some former Halloween decorations, others ... perhaps not.