Building’s fate worries trust

Press, 10 November 1983, Page 7

Building’s fate worries trust

By

PATRICIA HERBERT,

property reporter

Two prominent central Christchurch buildings, both listed by the City Council as architecturally significant, are threatened with demolition.

They are Butterfields’ building in High Street, and H. F. Stevens’ building in Worcester Street, which has been classified C by the Canterbury regional committee of the Historic Places Trust. While the trust would prefer to see both properties retained, it is particularly determined to ensure the preservation of the Stevens’ facade. The committee’s chairman, Mr D. E. Donnithorne, said yesterday that with “The Press” building the Government offices opposite and the rear of Christchurch Cathderal, it formed part of the best early architectural grouping in the city. He said that the building was less important for its individual merit than for its contribution to the group and that the trust was prepared to meet the cost of a structural report on the economics of saving the facade.

“We have not got inexhaustible funds but we feel so strongly about it that we are willing to pay an engineer to look at it more

closely,” Mr Donnithorne said.

Although aware that the property was in poor condition he said he thought that the facade could be kept and a new building inserted behind it without any extra expense to the developer. However, the owner, Mr P. D. Sloan, said the cost was not the only factor to be weighed in the balance. The demolition of the front part of the building was necessary to comply with council aegress requirements. “I have been toying with various ideas but there is no way that you can get round the laws on that one,” Mr Sloan said. He said that the regulations were justified. “I would not like to be stuck in a building that I could get out of and I would not like to incinerate someone else because I had not acted responsibly,” he said. Mr Sloan said that the property was in three parts, of which the facade was the first built and the least sound. He intended to demolish it, save the rest, and use the site for car-parking. The front part had dropped a foot on one side and there was no commerically viable way of retain-

ing it, Mr Sloan said, but he would be prepared to listen to the trust’s views, especially if it was prepared to put some money up. Mr Sloan said that before deciding on demolition, he had spent between $5OOO and $7OOO on engineers’ reports himself and that the alternatives had been fully explored. He said that the facade of the building, while it might appeal to Mr Donnithorne gave him “the willies.” “It is pretty medieval and hostile,” he said. Redevelopment plans for the Butterfields’ building designed by a leading Victorian architect in Christchurch, William Armson, remain uncertain according to the Assistant Town Planner, Mr John Dryden. He said that the council had received the obligatory three months notice to demolish, but that he had since been given to understand.; that the property was in the process of being sold. Mr Dryden said that neither building was protected by the council’s new strategy for the preservation of the city’s building heritage as the demolition notices had been received before the relevant scheme variations had been publicly notified.