Market’s planned new site

Press, 19 May 1989, Page 8

Market’s planned new site

By

DAVID CLARKSON

THE proposed new site for the Arts Centre Market is shown in this drawing by the landscape architects, Boffa Miskell Partners.

For eight years the market has been running in two quadrangles among the stone buildings towards the western end of the Arts Centre site.

The plan to move the market has provoked opposition from some stall-holders, a 2306 signature petition tabled at this week’s Christchurch City Council meeting, and a resolution by the council itself that the market should stay on its present site. The move is part of a % million dollar plan for the Arts Centre, involving repaving, new planting and landscaping. The market would be moved to two adjoining spaces at the eastern end of the site. One area is between the present craftshops, and Family Planning Association offices. The other is part of the area between the Academy Theatre and the Dux de Lux restaurant.

The redevelopment plan for the second area includes a playground, and an outdoor dining area.

The caretaker’s house and a garage would be demolished to make room for the relocated stalls.

The centre’s director, Mr Geoff Ellis, said the new site would be big enough to hold all the stalls on the present two sites.

The quadrangles where it now operated at week-ends would be used for outdoor entertainments such as buskers, jugglers and balladeers, wine and food festivals and outdoor theatre.

The market’s present site also obstructed the access to the Great Hall. Moving the stalls would allow musical events to take place in the hall, he said. The hall seated 350 people, but events there had to be timed to take place when the market was not running. “We are talking about an Arts Centre which has a wider range of entertainments for the public, and greater opportunities for the arts,” said Mr Ellis. “This whole landscaping is not about the future of the market. It is about the future of the Arts Centre, and there is more to the Arts Centre than the market," he said.

The landscape architects reported to the Arts Centre trust board that the centre’s open spaces had become shabby and continuing deterioration would reduce the quality of the site for present and future generations. They suggested moving the market to the eastern end of the site would relieve pressure on the quadrangles. One would be redesigned as a passive space, and the other for outdoor performances. The market stall-holders have been worried that the atmosphere of the market would be ruined by moving it from its present site among the stone buildings.