BUILDING BOOM

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22971, 24 February 1938, Page 10

BUILDING BOOM

PROGRESS OF DURBAN £2,000,000 LAST YEAR all sorts of premises [from our own correspondent] DURBAN, Jan. 14 The expenditure of £2,000,000 on new buildings in a year is, the remarkable story of Durban's building pro. gress in 1937. Soaring land prices have not. lessened the spate of building progress. . . / In one instance £IO.OOO was paid for a very small piece-of land, but on it a 15-storey building will be erected; so that, where buildings cannot be kept to a few storeys and be built over a large expanse of land, the builders are going upwards. Huge blocks of flats, big hotels, large factories, new business premises on almost palatial lines, new theatres, hundreds of houses —almost every single possible item of commercial and domestic building—was undertaken. Nearly 2000 plans fgr new buildings were passed during the year, the value of the buildings being the record one of £2,008,126. The rush to build is still continuing. Among the buildings which have been started and which are about to start are the Hotel Edward, £120,000; Prince's Theatre, y £130,000; new premises for the Natal Mercury, £7-3.000; the Natal Building Society, £35,000; the United Building Society, £88,000; and the Durban Confectionery Works' new factory, £30,000.