The changing face of Chch in 1985

Press, 28 December 1985, Page 23

The changing face of Chch in 1985

Property reporter The commercial heart of Christchurch has undergone a series of changes throughout the year, with multistorey buildings going up ... and coming down. Office blocks and several large hotels formed the main element in the changing face of Christchurch. By September, for example, the president of the Real Estate Institute in Canterbury, Mr Kent Prier, calculated that an almost unprecedented 60 floors of office space was either under construction or being planned for the city centre. Much of this he attributed to the anticipation of GST, as well as to the burgeoning consolidation of businesses nationwide and a concomitant trend towards a more upmarket image. Firms now also preferred larger offices, he believed. Certainly, millions of dollars have been poured into the central city area in the last year. The old commercial block next to the Salvation Army Citadel was cleared and levelled, ready for the large Parkroyal Hotel in Victoria Square.

Opposite the Parkroyal site, on the corner of Durham Street and Kilmore Street, work has begun on a new $l4 million 127-suite hotel, to be called Durham Towers. Three new Hereford Street office blocks have been started this year. A six-storey building at 172 Hereford Street was built by a Christchurch firm, Castleton Securitus, Ltd, and sold to the Metropolitan Life Assurance Company for $2.4M. Canterbury’s first wool auction store, at 153 Hereford Street, was demolished to make way for a sevenstorey commercial building. The building, which was designed by Warren and Mahoney, will house retail space on the ground floor. Work also continues on the S7M Government departmental building on Hereford Street, close to Latimer Square. Up to five storeys high, the building will be occupied mainly by the Ministry of Works and Development A two-storey building on the corner of Tattersails Lane and Cashel Street was demolished for a new $4.5M building. It will house GST staff when completed, with

shops on the ground floor. The Arthur Young House, a seven-storey office building in Cambridge Terrace, was officially opened in July, and Lagel House, three storeys high, on the corner of Durham Street and Armagh Street, was opened in April. The Bank of New Zealand built a new U-storey branch in Armagh Street, opposite New Regent Street, on the site of the old Shillito’s building. The new premises are next to the old Armagh Street branch, which will be demolished.