THE PRESS WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 21, 1987. Victoria Square under siege

Press, 21 October 1987, Page 20

THE PRESS WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 21, 1987. Victoria Square under siege

At an early stage in the debate over whether Victoria Square should sprout a 167-metre observation tower, a wit suggested that a hole in the square would be as useful. He wrote too soon. Just such a proposal is now being considered by the Christchurch City Council. A private construction company, March Construction, Ltd, has offered to dig up the square to put in a three-deck, underground car-park that would hold 689 cars. The $14.1 million development would be covered with two metres of soil to enable lawns and gardens to be restored. Few people could deny there is need for more inner-city car parking. The want of it might weigh heavily with the council in its consideration of the proposal; the council has not been able to fulfill its undertaking to provide multi-level car parking between the Public Library and the Christchurch Workingmen’s Club and might be encouraged to view the proposal as one way of getting off that hook. Apparently all that would be required of the council would be to lease the land to the construction company. The council, properly, has called for a comprehensive report on the suggestion, refusing to be stampeded into approving it in principle. Ever since plans were announced for the Parkroyal Hotel that would necessitate closing off the north-west comer of the square, the open space of Victoria Square has become a challenge for developers, public and private. The wide range of proposals,and the obvious conflict of ideas in the community about what would be the best use of Victoria Square, impose on the council a duty to study carefully all details of reasonable or seemingly reasonable suggestions before committing the city to any action.

The car-park scheme is still only roughly outlined, but the early estimate is that construction would take at least a year. New landscaping would take a considerable time to establish after that although, with an available soil depth of only two metres, the square would never again contain trees of any great size if the present trees were lost. By any account the square will be out of commission and out of bounds for a long period, probably all of a couple of years. The views from the Town Hall and from the new hotel — which paid the city well for the location — will resemble a bomb site more than a park for all of that time. A lot of people will insist, and with some justice, that the upheaval is not to be tolerated, especially when a little juggling by developers could

provide parking spaces elsewhere in conjunction with new buildings on privately owned land near Victoria Square.

The practicability of the proposal is best left to the experts. The construction company is confident of the scheme’s feasibility; the council’s officers, on the scanty information available to them so far, can say only that the project might be physically possible, but they do not yet have enough detail to say so with confidence. The council will need to know what will happen if for technical, or economic, or any other reasons during the year or so of construction the company cannot complete the job. What is to become of the public’s square then? And who is to pay for setting things to right? The cost of each car park in the proposed development is high, more than $20,000 each. The investment is a very long-term one. Even if the car-park were built for the estimated price (unusual in today’s world), and even if it was open for 12 hours a day each weekday, and even if every car park was full for all of those 12 hours, it would take almost three and a half years to pay for just the construction at a parking fee of $2 an hour. During all that time the car-park would be incurring unusually high overheads for a building of its type. Because it would be underground, provision would have to be made for constant lighting and ventilation, and for equipment to prevent flooding. Exacting scrutiny has been applied to the costings and profit estimations for the tower proposal; the council can do no less for this scheme.

One of the arguments advanced in favour of the scheme has been the traffic likely to be generated by the eventual redevelopment of the Farmers Trading Company site bounded by Gloucester, Colombo, and Armagh Streets. A little lateral thinking suggests that somewhere in this redevelopment, or any other nearby, there should be room for a car-parking building that need not be obtrusive, as the Noah’s Hotel car park illustrates.

If underground car-parks are the way to go, other sites could accommodate them every bit as easily as the square. Such parks could provide the required spaces yet place no demands on public ground. There are other sites close to the square scheduled or ripe for redevelopment where similar smaller car-parks could be incorporated. These possibilities have to be considered along with all other factors impinging on what is, at first glance, a tempting offer.