Re-Building Auckland

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 215, 30 November 1927, Page 10

Re-Building Auckland

DEMAND FOR MODERN PREMISES Leaves Many Untenanted Offices FOR the first time in years, Auckland’s building figures have. since last April, been surpassed by those of \V ellington, where there is at the moment a minor boom in big city blocks, while on the contrary Auckland appears to have passed the crest of its frantic construction wave—a wave that etched for the city a new skyline, altered the appearance ot its streets, and endowed it with modern office accommodation that for the present serves more than adequately the needs of the business community.

TC*OT that the rebuilding process in x ' Auckland is finished, or even at a standstill. It is still a virile agency, raising in the heart of the city such impressive piles as the new South British building, the Smith and Caughey block on Fullers’ old site, and the new St. James's Theatre, opposite the empty civic square.

Bursts of building fever appear to visit growing cities in spasms, and recent years brought to Auckland a cycle that was without parallel in the history of the city’s development. Thus the heart of the city was remoulded. Anzac Avenue appeared on

a hillside that was formerly tenanted by lowly shacks and picturesque Admiralty House, and the noble Dilworth Building rose from the foundations of a tavern where the waterfront worthies of half a century had congregated. It was inevitable that the pageant of city building should have had other results than the spectacular, and one of them is the number of “Offices to let” signs which at present festoon the vacant windows of a number of city blocks. A walk down Queen Street reveals at an easy glance half a hundred pallid prints gummed to elevated window panes. Even the Dilworth Building, in its key position on a bustling corner, still has blank windows, and opposite It the more elderly Palmerston Building exhibits a prominent sign which tells Its own story. WAITING FOR TENANTS

The number of empty offices in back streets of the mercantile area easily shades Queen Street’s tenantless floors and forms a topic for Interesting reflection. Brand new, at the foot of Anzac Avenue, a huge eight-storey pile has yet no more than two or three

outside tenants. Practically next, door is a slightly newer and smaller block that -was let, on paper, before a yard of concrete was deposited in the walls. Many other buildings in Anzac Avenue have office space to spare in the top floors, and in the neighbourhood of Chancery and O'Connell Streets there are still numerous offices which Auckland's populous legal community has not yet been able to absorb. Choosing examples at random, one sees Gleeson’s Building, a tall prewar block that was once Auckland’s loftiest, and has been nearly empty for a long time. Of later date is Chancery Building, an example of recent architectural construction, as well as of the scarcity of tenants, though it rurnishes at least one snug novelty, a tea-room in a tower which commands the city. It was consideration of the glutted market for office space which determined the Dilworth trustees to defer for another five years the completion of their lower Queen Street programme of twin buildings. At a later date the Dilworth block will have a sister across thr road, on the site wher ; the remodelled Waitemata Hotel proffers an unfamiliar aspect created by the lately-installed shopfronts. CROWDING THE MARKET A big building of seven, eight or nine floors may mean an acre or so of office space to be partitioned off and let, and an acre of office space is no negligible consideration on the market for that commodity. Further space is made available by the completion of the Yorkshire Building in Shortland Street. Cook’s Building, Eady’s, and the Colonial Mutual are amorg the others which will have the latest in accommodation to dispose of. It is a question of supply and demand, and- at present the supply is good, while the demand is hardly what it was in the heyday of prosperous years, when profits were easy and v -.table business concerns rose, flourished and then faded. In certain less pretentious areas of the city, odd though it seems, the “To-let” sign is less common than in those purlieus where law, insurance and the financial wizards are enshrined. At the corner of Hobson Street and Victoria Street has risen the new Manchester Building, notable for a concrete verandah which is quite new in local constructional practice, and a dancing floor that wil be mounted on rubber blocks. In the indefinite future the addition of five others to the existing four floors will make the block one of the most imposing in the city. Architects and agents, in touch with the demand for shop and office space, say the trend 5~ constantly from the old to the new. Fast elevators, good lighting and better heating systems are demanded by prospective tenants, even though higher rents have to be paid for modern facilities. The result is a tendency for the older buildings to be left, and the owners thereof are compelled by the keen competition to set about the financing of a building proposition that will advance them once more to the forefront.