VALUABLE BLOCK

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 174, 20 April 1937, Page 10

VALUABLE BLOCK

Present Central Fire Station Site The mayor of Wellington, Mr. T. C. A. Hislop, has announced that the l.arge billiard and recreation room in the central fire station building will be made available to the Local Bodies Staffs’ Association when the brigade moves into its new quarters at Clyde Quay. That move will prob,ably not be made until early in August, so that the room will be available to the city council staff only for the latter half of the winter. It is a matter of interest as to how long that room will be available for purely recreational purposes. The site of the present central lire brigtide station is one of the best and most central in the city, with extensive. frontages to Lower Cuba Street, Mercer Street, and Jervois Quay, forming the apex of a valuable triangular city block which has a great potential future. Only seven years ago the fate of this block was under discussion. The then mayor (Sir George Troup)), with his line idealism, wanted to clear away all the buildings on the block and lay it out as a large reserve fronting the Town Hall, with the new central library on the southern side. In those days the fire board wished to retain the site for a new central station, but the city council later decided against this. Now the new fire station is nearly up, and the city council has to decide, sooner or later, what it intends to do with the existing fine station site. Its suitability as the site of a new municipal departmental block is beyond question. Indeed, at one stage sketch plans were prepared for such a building, and are, it is understood, still iu existence. At one time it was thought 'possible to accommodate some of, the city engineer’s staff in Electricity House, but that building is now almost fully occupied by the tramways and electric lighting department, so that the city engineer’s department, if it is to have the new quarters recommended by the commission of five years ago. must look elsewhere for them. At the present certain members of the building branch of the city engineer’s department are engaged in Electricity House on special work connected with the survey of quantities for the new central library, but this is only a tempbrary tenancy.