BOWEN CHAMBERS

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 147, 19 December 1930, Page 13

BOWEN CHAMBERS

NEW CITY BUILDINGS TENDER ACCEPTED

A contract has been accepted by the City Council for tho erection of the new corporation building which will form the background for the Citizens' Memorial on Quintou's corner. The price is understood to be in the vicinity of £20,000, but the actual figure and tho successful tenderer will not be announced until the documents have been completed.

The buildings will be known as Bowen Chambers, and will house also the Hutt County oflices, a mutually satisfactory arrangement having been come to between the City Council and the County Council in the matter. The county offices will bo entirely separate in interior arrangement, but the building frontage will present the appearance of ft single block.

The building will bo of four stories, with a brick frontage, relieved by a central balustraded feature and with a simple unbroken skyline at such a height, when one looks across from the corner of Bunny street and Lambton quay, as to strike across the column of the memorial at about two-thirds of its height. Thus tho equestrian statue will siand out against the sky.1 A great deal of thought was put into this background aspect, for plainly the effectiveness of the memorial 'could be spoiled by a hotch-potch or unsuitable building background. The design adopted is simple but very promising.

The ground floor in its frontage to the new length of roadway will contain nine shops, some of which may be used as showrooms by the corporation itself. A wide verandah will serve as shelter for tram passengers when some day the Bowen street tracks are laid. The upper floors will "be used ,f or office purposes, and it is tho intention of the council to move the main tramway traffic offices, at present opposite Lambton station, to the new building, when, and possibly before, the new railway station is" built in Bunny street .and the tram terminus is moved. Certain other corporation offices may bo placed in the new building also; for instance, it has been suggested that a branch payin office of tho Electricity Department should be opened there for tho convenience of people of Wellington North.