AT EVANS BAY.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1116, 2 May 1911, Page 3

AT EVANS BAY.

UNION COMPANY'S BIG DEPOT. At Evan; Bay, immediately to the northward of the Patent Slip, Mr. Maurice O'Connor is carrying out cxceiwyo works on behalf of the Union Steam Ship Company. In its broail features, the undertaking involves the reclamation of about four acres of land from the harbour, the construction of a wharf, p.nd the erection of a laundry and extensive workshops. Already considerable headway has been made, and a transformation has been effected in the appearance of tho Evans Bay foreshore as compared with the appearance it bore only a few months ago. Tho reclamation is about half completed. Spoil is being obtained from a bluff north of the Patent Slip, and conveyed across the voail to the water-front. The cutting down of this bluff opens the way lor a deviation which will greatly improve the road. Over a distance of about 50!) yards it is being carried inshore, and an abrupt and inconvenient road angle north of the Patent Slip will be done away with. This part of the work is now in progress, simultaneously with the reclamation. Two birds aro being killed with one stone. Spoil had to bo secured for the reclamation, and its removal from the prcsaut source of supply makes possible the improvement of the road. The laundry building is practically completed, and will bo finished in about a week. It is a solid brick construction, erected on the foreshore, seaward of tha road. The building is eighty feet wide and 160 deep. Tho front portion, facing the road, is of two stories, and the remaining section, eighty feet by eighty, is one story high. Some of the. machinery required to equip the laundry is already on tho ground, and a start will be made shortly upon the work of creating it. To this establishment, when it is fitted up, tho enormous quantities of linen used aboard the ships of the Union Company's feet will bo brought periodically to bo cleansed. Most ,of the material for. the projected wharf is on the ground, and a start will bo made shortly upon its construction. It is to bo 280 feet long and twenty feet wide.' South of the laundry building, on the area now in process of reclamation, workshops and repair shops are to be erected. Tho various buildings and yards will occupy a space of aljoiit two acres. No doubt a little village of houses will eventually spring up in the neighbourhood of tho works. At present three cottages are being commenced, one for the manager nnd the ollicrs for workmen, and other cottages, already standing, have been shifted. The. contract, as a whole, has been entrusted. as stated, to Mr. Maurice O'Connor. Messrs. Andrews and Kennedy arc ; sub-contractors for the reclamation works. [ Mr. L. M'Donald represents the Union | Company, as clerk of works. The underj taking ns a whole at present affords em- ; ploymcnt to about fifty men.