The historic Manning River Times building in Taree will be restored and given a new purpose

The original building was built in 1899 and was the home of the Manning River Times from then until 2016, when it was sold at auction, and the Times moved into our current premises in Victoria Street.

For the past six years, it has been used as a yoga studio.

The wellness centre will be comprised of four components: consulting rooms for practitioners, such as perhaps a kinesiologist, chiropractor, a holistic GP and others; an events room to be used as a yoga studio, and to hire out for talks, seminars and events; an apothecary retail store which will sell healing items like herbs, teas, oils and creams; and a whole food café "to feed and nourish the soul," Amanda Tate, who purchased the building, said.

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There is a lot of work to be done to restore and modify the building. Amanda says there have been some add-ons to the building over the years, and she is going to strip it back to the original building.

"We feel compelled to do something really special with the building,"

"It's a prominent corner in town so we have a huge responsibility to do something really nice that's going to hopefully be a show point on that corner and reinvigorate the old."

Amanda is even planning to give a nod to the building's history in the name of the café.

"We've been throwing around names for the café, like The Printery. I think the architect suggested Sign of the Times!" she said.

The name of the centre has already been chosen: the Anandamaya Wellness Centre. Anandamaya is a Sanskrit word meaning, in essence, 'blissful, full of joy or happiness'.

Plans are for the ambience of the interior of the building to reflect the name. There will be a lot of greenery, both indoors and in outdoor courtyards.

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"My vision for the inside is for it to have an Asian/Ayurvedic look and feel so when you walk in you immediately have a sense of calm with lots of greenery and light and the sound of water running," Amanda said.

Amanda says the centre will be a place to focus on being healthy, staying healthy, and avoiding getting sick.

"The wellness centre will be complimentary to medical centres with the aim to educate and assist people to live a healthy lifestyle to prevent sickness in the first place, both mentally and physically," Amanda said.

"We are hoping to attract holistic practitioners, an apothecary retail section plus a holistic café that will provide food to feed and nourish the soul."

The development application was submitted to MidCoast Council around three months ago and is yet to be approved.

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