Cavallaro hopes to add new West Tamworth bottleshop in defunct Commonwealth Bank to IGA empire

Developer Carlo Cavallaro applied to Tamworth Regional Council in August to convert the old bank building on Bridge Street into the city's newest bottleshop.

Mr Cavallaro told the Leader he'd long searched for a site to set up a store, and the spot ticks all the boxes.

It'll be one of the few in that part of Tamworth, the site fits all the council requirements and boasts plenty of car parking, he said.

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"I believe that there is a convenience factor," he said.

"I believe it is the right place to put a bottleshop, yes."

The West Tamworth Commonwealth Bank branch closed at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, in 2020.

It has remained closed ever since and the financial corporation later sold the building to the developer.

Mr Cavallaro is adding to a significant empire of IGAs, and he'd long searched for a site to deploy a licence he'd held to sell liquor, left over after the closure of a store in Calala.

The developer said it was the perfect candidate for a conversion, being in a visually prominent location on the side of a major road.

"We've been looking for a site for a bottleshop, the building was up for sale. It was quite obvious that I can't turn it into a bank.

"We think that it's a good position for a boutique type of a bottleshop."

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Mr Cavallaro said the redevelopment would cost about $250,000, take about a year and once completed the new store would employ about half-a-dozen people.

It would also fill a hole in the market, with just a a handful of bottleshops serving that part of town, he said.

The change of use and refit needs to be approved by Tamworth Regional Council before construction can begin on the new facility. It will also have to go to the liquor board for signoff.

The bottleshop is just the latest development proposal for the booming Bridge Street commercial strip.

Developer Angelo Skagias is midway through a $12.5 million development of the old Tamworth Worker's Club into commercial real estate, to reopen a site that has been closed for a decade.

A new three-storey medical clinic is currently under construction just down the road from the bank site.

And Guzman y Gomez also plans to demolish the old NBN studio on the street and covert it into a Mexican fast food restaurant.

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