COMMERCIAL BUILDING

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 19868, 16 June 1927, Page 6

COMMERCIAL BUILDING

ACTIVITY IN WANGANUI MUCH MONEY INVOLVED While residential building is not brisk in Wanganui, there is considerable activity in commercial building construction, over £lOO,OOO being involved in several large and up-to-date premises in the course of erection. A two-storied block of shops and offices in Ridgway Street, erected by the Trafalgar Building Co. is practically completed. It is of permanent type, beam pillar construction, with brick curtain walls, and finished in cement. Part of the building is to be occupied by the money order and savings bank branch of the Wanganui Post Office. Mr A. G. Bignell is the contractor. Another building in the hands of ihc same contractor is the Power Board’s offices in St. Hill Street. The building will be of brick, plastered throughout; the ground floor being largely taken up by a well finished showroom and offices and the first floor being devoted to a board-room, more office accommodation and a room for demonstrating electric houshold appliances. Up-To-Date Hotel Spriggens’ Hotel on the corner oi Guyton Street and St. Hill Street is also nearing completion. It is of the concrete beam and pillar type witl

curtain walls throughout, and fireproof. This and the new post office at Castlecliff, which will be a single storey building, are also being constructed by Mr Bignell. A large two-storied building is also being erected in Victoria Avenue, in front of Trinity Church, at the order of i the church trustees. It will have a 200 feet frontage with 10 shops on the ground floor and the building is being so constructed that two stories can bo added at a later date. Provision is being made for an electric lift. The building is in grey English cement and the contractors Messrs John Jones and Sons, have more than half completed tho work. Theatre At Aramoho Outside the urban area a new theatre is receiving the finishing touches at Aramoho. It is a well finished building with seating accommodation for 750 persons, access to the internal of the theatre being through an elaborate entrance between two shops in the front of the building. The name of the theatre will be “The Duchess,” and at the corner of two moulded panels in the front are roses formed in white cement. The name will be displayed in mirrored prism plate glass—something new in the way of signs in Wanganui.