Ballantyne’s To Start Next Building Stage

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30316, 17 December 1963, Page 16

Ballantyne’s To Start Next Building Stage

J. Ballantyne and Company, Ltd., will begin another stage' in the reconstruction of its! shop next month. The men’s section will be shifted temporarily westwards and that part of the building will be demolished. It will be replaced by a 7000 aq. ft. reinforced concrete building with an interior in the same style as the other new parts. This is the fourth stage of the company's £500,000 replacement of the several buildings burned in 1947. and the first in replacing the whole of the Cashel street and Colombo street frontages. It will have a basement which could be converted to shop space when required It will be ventilated by a I modern air-conditioning plant I with filtering, heating, and' cooling equipment. Over the last 15 years the company has been consolidating its holding of one of the most valuable commercial 1

sites in the city by the purchase, in 1948, of most of the land and the stage-by-stage of a permanent building which can eventually be extended to six storeys.

The footpath outside the new men s shop will be 16ft wide, 7ft wider than a t present It will be covered by a 12ft veranda.

Work wiU begin on January 13 and should finish in October before the next Christmas selling begins. Plans have been laid so as to cause the minimum of upset in the rest of the shop and to protect it from noise and dust during the demolition and building. Much of the material used to build the present temporary structure is the brick and Oamaru stone salvaged from the old buildings after they were burned down. The architects for the building are Messrs Warren and Mahoney, and the builder m Chas. S. Luney, Ltd.