There a very interesting agenda item in Auckland City Council’s May 2010 “City Development Committee” meeting, which relates to an idea that it seems the Council is working on in partnership with Sky City, that could result in Federal Street becoming a shared space, but at the ‘price’ of letting Sky City extend their convention centre in the airspace that sits above the road reserve. Here’s the summary of the item:
Despite the macro benefits offered by Sky City as an international entertainment precinct and Sky Tower in particular as a recent landmark addition and iconic structure on the Auckland sky line the sky city complex does not engage well with the street. Along its western edge the sky city building has a poor relationship with Hobson Street. In particular, the bus station is set back from the street frontage and provides a significant impediment for easy pedestrian movement. Pavements run along blank frontages and at times are not connected offering low levels of amenity, comfort and safety.
In a similar way, Federal Street (between Wellesley and Victoria Streets) is also currently an uninviting pedestrian environment. This is primarily due to the street frontage being dominated by car park entrances, inactive blank concrete facades, large pillars, and above ground planter boxes. These components obscure sight lines, marginalise pedestrians to the edge of the street and create significant issues around perceived and real safety, street clutter and accessibility. The street is also used as a rat run, taxi rank and a coach drop off spot. This further compromises noise, air quality, and overall microclimate.
Despite being the front door to a 5 star hotel and one of Auckland’s major tourist attractions, the street is also poorly landscaped and unattractive. The combination of all of these elements makes for a cluttered, unappealing and intimidating pedestrian environment.
Federal Street is on the radar in terms of requiring intervention and upgrading but is not currently in CBD Projects streetscape 10 year programme of works. However, one of the outcomes of the CBD into the Future strategy is to deliver a high-quality urban environment and one of the identified actions to help achieve this outcome is to work with building owners and developers to maximise opportunities to improve streetscapes should the opportunity to arise.
To transform the public realm quality and destination experience within Federal Street requires collaboration with the adjoining landowners, as ground floor activation will be required to work in harmony with the public space to create a more active, safer, vibrant and inviting pedestrian environment. There now exists an opportunity for the city to work in partnership with a significant landowner (Sky City) to undertake potentially transformational urban repair work within this critical area of the mid-city. This report covers the site and the opportunity that has been presented.
SKYCITY Entertainment Group Limited (“SKYCITY”) have approached Council with a proposal to undertake a package of works. The three components of the package are as follows:
1. Redevelop Federal Street as a quality shared space predestrian friendly environment between Wellesley and Victoria Streets so that a wider range of uses, activities and events can occur during both during the day and night.
2. Reconfigure the ground floor of SKYCITY’s buildings to accommodate an eclectic mix of restaurant and retail units on their Federal Street frontages.
3. Extend the existing SKYCITY conference facilities into the airspace over Federal Street. The proposal would result in an overbuilding that would span a 48m stretch of Federal Street. The overbuilding would be 13m above street level, and approximately 9m high. This would allow SKYCITY to increase the capacity of their largest conference room to seat 2,000 (currently 1,500) for a lecture, and host a banquet for 1,600 (currently 1,200) people. SKYCITY have commissioned Gordon Moller and a nationally recognised artist to work together to develop an exciting concept that would cleverly sheath or conceal the overbuilding in order to create a significant piece of public art. It is proposed that this art work together with innovative design components would in fact enhance the public realm from a physical and visual amenity point of view.Despite the opportunity presented there are a number of urban design challenges associated with the proposed overbuilding, and its real and perceived potential negative impact on the public realm in Federal Street. The construction of such an overbuilding will be polarising, with some, such as some members of the Urban Design Panel, being fundamentally opposed to building over a public street and those such as The Public Art Panel who are sceptical but believe that if the public art component is extraordinary in design quality and authentically integrated so as to drive the architectural response (rather than the other way round) the project may be supported.
The view supported by this report is similar. If the package of works within each component is developed to an exemplary design standard it could certainly provide a quality outcome for the city. It also believes that this is an exciting package of catalytic interventions that council would be unable to deliver on its own and encourages further dialogue with Sky City and their team to see if the potential can be realised. This report also acknowledges that wider interventions or urban acupuncture (such as the reconfiguration of ASB building on Federal St, the boulevarding and two-waying of Hobson Street or the relocation of the intercity bus depot) may also be possible by leveraging opportunities to work alongside other key landowners such as Multiplex or stakeholders such as NZTA or ARTA. This is a golden opportunity to progress this dialogue.
SKYCITY will only undertake the work if all three components are agreed to by council.
SKYCITY requires council’s consent as landowner to undertake the redevelopment of Federal Street, and also requires an airspace lease to allow the construction of the convention centre overbuilding.
SKYCITY have made an offer to fund the redevelopment of Federal Street.
I find myself rather fascinated by the proposal here, as it would be great to have another shared space within the Auckland CBD. Yet at the same time I also find myself concerned about the effects of extending the conference centre into the air space above Federal Street. So what might this look like? Luckily we have a few sketches and renders showing what the end result might look like:
It should be noted that this view doesn’t really show the depth of the structure within the air-space, that remember will be close to 50 m long. However, at the same time it’s clear to see the benefits with the pedestrian space being much much bigger than it is at the moment, which is shown below:
As you can see it’s hardly a particularly pedestrian friendly street at the moment, and there already are two air-bridges across the street-space, although both are pretty tiny compared to what is proposed by Sky City.
Here’s another view of what is proposed:
Once again the render is being a little bit sneaky in showing the extended conference centre as being a little more transparent than it will end up being.
I’m not quite sure what I think of the proposal all up (more detailed drawings can be accessed here). Another shared space would be great, but at the same time the building in the airspace could have some pretty adverse effect unless its design is exceptional. What do other people think?
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I think I like it, in total. The street would be wide enough and the building high enough above for the whole not to feel too cramped. Sunlight is already pretty marginal there much of the time of the day due to the buildings west and east, so the loss isn’t that gigantic. Too bad it will be a long time before this shared space will ever connect to those further down the hill. But still good.
That said, Skycity should still pay the airspace lease $$$s – those are pretty substantial, and are calculated off the ongoing benefit SkyCity gets from a larger space, rather than off-set against the one-time cost of doing a shared space.
“urban acupuncture” is a pretty dodgy term, by the way.
I like the fact that the “two-waying” of Hobson Street is at least vaguely on the agenda. I would also push for the footpath along the Hobson Street side of Sky City to be fixed up. It’s disgraceful that it disappears into the bus terminal.
Go for it, I drive this street at least two times a day and it is one of the most pedestrian unfriendly in the CBD, with peds constantly having to run out of the way of cars, I’m guessing a few people get hit a year here…
The loss of overhead space while lamentable is a small price to pay for increased accessibility and the economic and health benefits of encouraging walking, lower pollution and having fewer traffic collisions…
I like it, great idea. Best of all SkyCity are funding it themselves.
Looks great, I agree the loss of the airspace is a small price to pay for such a quality street. Agreed admin the Hobson Street side should be cleaned up. Slightly off topic but has anyone heard whether they are going to move the inter city bus terminal to Britomart?
I have heard rumours that there’s a desire to shift the intercity bus terminal. However, I don’t really know whether there’s much room around Britomart. It would be good to have the intercity terminal near a public transport node.
Seems alright to me. At least they are thinking about how they can do things to enhance the public environment at the same time. At night it could be a really neat place with the building above it will be open but protected from the weather and could utilise some really neat lighting schemes to create a great space.
Perhaps allow it with a caveat that they put up a decent amount of money towards a CBD tunnel station when that is built.
protected from the weather?
Urban canyons tend to channel wind horribly. It will be drizzly, cold, and damp.
“I like the fact that the “two-waying” of Hobson Street is at least vaguely on the agenda.”
Whoops, missed that. That is GREAT, because these things need to worm their way into the system first, and it seems they are doing that.
“Go for it, I drive this street at least two times a day and it is one of the most pedestrian unfriendly in the CBD, with peds constantly having to run out of the way of cars, I’m guessing a few people get hit a year here…”
I actually expect the pedestrian safety record to be pretty “good” – i.e. no serious incidents, and maybe a few minor ones. Speeds won’t be high, and the road isn’t wide enough for people to do crazy things because they have gotten fed up with waiting. I could be wrong – mmh, maybe I should look it up at work, except I am technically not supposed to do unless I have work related to the particular area…
But people don’t actually get hit as much as people think. That said, that does not mean it is a pleasant street for peds right now. Amenity and safety are related, but different.
“Perhaps allow it with a caveat that they put up a decent amount of money towards a CBD tunnel station when that is built.”
I would be against that, because SkyCity would only go for that if they could off-set those costs against other improvements, and who nows when they would have to cough up that money. No, do the horse-trading now. They can do more horse-trading over rail stations later.
Oh, and Jarbury, I talked to an ACC consultant (and former ACC lead engineer) regarding Britomart some 2 years back. They were so at a premium for bus stop space down there, they were forcing us to retain a double bus stop covering 50% of a narrow construction site right through the construction period. They just haven’t got any to spare – certainly not enough for a reasonable intercity terminal. Unless of course – there’s vacant Queen’s Wharf 😉
I agree ingolfson, I reckon we can leverage some decent funding out of Atrium on Elliott if a main entrance to the Midtown station is through their mall. I guess if the station is under Albert Street then Sky City might want a direct link to it.
I’m not so sure about Britomart bus capacity issues, the city circuit bus takes up a whole spot and another space or two has single routes utilising it… It is a problem of through-routing and timetabling I think, not the shear numbers of buses using the area…
Massive improvement on whats currently there, so I am all for it. But the overhead structure should have some imagination to it. There is a mall in Beijing which has an overhead screen covering most of the outdoor strip on which colours, images etc are screened. Something like that, to beak up the “block” effect, would be a good idea.
I have mixed feelings about this.
On the one hand the street environment is massively improved. However, at the same time I feel the overhead structure will tend to enclose and give a sense of “privatisation” of the space.
However, on balance I think the pros outweigh the cons and I would support it. And I mean let’s face it, Federal Street is pretty much dominated by Sky City anyway
Those are my feelings generally too Matt, that on balance it’s probably a step in the right direction. It’d certainly be more ideal if we got the streetscape upgrade without the “roof” on the street, but Federal Street’s so bad at the moment that what is proposed certainly seems better than what we have now.
To admin – Yes, shifting the intercity bus terminal is well-overdue, if the room could ever be found. Remembering that most passengers have luggage, it is too far from Britomart for anyone to use it easily if a transfer to a local service is required.
I like the potential here for good outcomes as part of a sort of public-private partnership. It appears Skycity identify the economic value of good urban environments that people appreciate, so good in them for going for this instead of focusing purely inside their building (I guess the pretty much ‘own’ that street now anway…)
So is Auckland going to be the shared spaces posterboy for the world now? There are plenty of places with pedestrian centres but I don’t know of any with such a great coverage of shared streets. At this rate Auckland is seriously at risk of developing a pleasant CBD!
Two-laning Hobson St, all good. I can’t see it happening for a while but I think it is a logical progression of these sorts of initiatives. Within a few years the Queen St side of town will be all revamped and shared space, while the area around Victoria Park and Rhubarb Lane will be likewise a high quality mixed use urban environment… that will just leave the Berlin Wall death zone of Hobson and Nelson between them, which will increasingly stick out like a sore thumb in an otherwise progressive CBD.
” They just haven’t got any to spare – certainly not enough for a reasonable intercity terminal.”
Not at the kerb perhaps, but they do have room for two new multi story carparking buildings in the precinct, perhaps they could use the ground floor of one of those (probably not enough headroom for coaches in a standard carpark building floor though). What about in the basement of the Westfield development I wonder?
“It is a problem of through-routing and timetabling I think, not the shear numbers of buses using the area…”
Jeremy, the real problem is buses waiting to start their runs. They have insufficient spare capacity to let them wait close enough to Britomart – and waiting further away, they can’t be sure of getting them there on time in peak time traffic. You don’t want buses STARTING their run with a delay.
So yes, bus space is very much at a premium around Britomart.
If you through-routed buses and ran them at 10 minute frequencies then it wouldn’t really matter so much whether they were “on schedule” or not. As long as there’s a bus coming every 10 minutes (or less preferably) that’ll do the trick.
Nick, yeah imagine Auckland becoming the shared space capital of the world! (Although let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves, we don’t actually have ANY built shared spaces yet).
I like it. If the ratepayers don’t have to finance the improvement then it has a chance of being done sooner rather than later. Two questions:
Is there any reason for it to be a shared space rather than a pedestrian only space?
The overhead structure might be around for 100 years, while outdoor areas seem to get tatty and dated and need replacement every 20 years or so. Will Sky have an ongoing responsibility to keep the outside area looking fresh? If their proposed retail areas benefit from having a good looking street outside then maybe it would benefit them to maintain the space.
Obi, that is my main concern about the proposal – that a council might get around to doing this street one day without us having to put up with the overhead structure, but once it’s there, as you say it’ll be there for a VERY very long time.
That said, I suppose if it can be made into an artistic feature it might not be too bad.
Admin… I don’t think it is necessarily a matter of “having to put up with” the addition. A CBD isn’t a wilderness area where any structure at all degrades the environment. A CBD should be full of well designed and constructed buildings that interact to form a pleasant urban environment. If Sky build quality retail developments, streetscape, and overhead structure then that should “add” to the city. I think they have an incentive to ensure this happens… there doesn’t seem to be much point designing an ugly street that won’t draw people in to their postulated shops or casino.
Just by the way, I think the tower itself is quite cool. Iconic towers seem to date badly. Sydney’s isn’t real pretty. London’s is tatty. And Seattle’s is just George Jetson weird. But I think Auckland’s is elegant and still looks modern.
Currently the sky city taxi rank is accessed off Federal St. If the taxi rank stayed in the same place large numbers of taxis would be using Federal st which would seriously diminish its attraction as a shared space.
Taxi drivers would soon disregard the shared space concept and try to speed along there.
Therefore either a) preferably the taxi rank should be moved to the Victoria st frontage, or b) they could re-orientate the taxi rank so it was accessed off Victoria St, ans then loops back onto Victoria using the short section of Federal.
Luke, perhaps that is one good reason for moving the coach terminal, they could use it as a super taxi rank instead.
Luke, the various options look at potentially changing the way traffic works along Federal Street to avoid that. The traffic report that looks at the options is here: http://www.aucklandcity.govt.nz/council/members/committeemeetings/city/20100513_0930/CDC-13052010-OPN-AGD-%2309C.pdf
They’re also considered in the detailed design I linked to earlier.
I think on the whole it’s a good move for this street, especially if it means Skycity will activate the edges of their buildings which are pretty dire at the moment. Overall, I think there still needs to be a major change in the attitude of drivers in Auckland, I forget the number of times taxis and cars have honked at me for daring to walk along the footpath where it crosses the ‘car lobby’ to SkyCity below the sky tower – an area in which pedestrians have right of way.
I agree that most of the images are pretty sneaky, none of them show the shadowing this would cause and none of them show an image showing what it’ll look like from below. It will be quite substantial and the worry would be that it becomes a long dark wind-tunnel. I’d like to see how Skycity plans to activate their edges before I’d completely agree with what’s proposed – I’m not completely convinced with the idea of privatising public space just to save a few million dollars. Especially when most of the benefits of this street will flow back into Skycity through increased patronage of their restaurants.
As far as Auckland becoming the shared space capital of the world forget it. Shared space concepts are used as per default in street planning in Switzerland and Auckland has a long way to go with just 3-4 streets currently in the works. In a way I find it funny that it’s being presented as something new, perhaps in the English speaking world but certainly not in the German speaking world ;-).
There’s quite a few additional details in this which make the whole project more appealing in my view and are all things the council could never achieve alone as well as in regards to thing people have brought up.
1) Skycity may remove 1 or both of the entrances to their underground car park – this would have massive transformational effects on the Wellesley street side – and along with a reversal of the traffic flow should reduce traffic by 50%.
2) There will be an airspace lease
3) Skycity would like to have the upgrade done by RWC
Furthermore the report states:
There are a number of other ‘Urban Repair’ improvements that could be leveraged to create a better city fabric in and around the SKYCITY precinct. These topics have been raised with the SKYCITY project manager, but fall outside the scope of this immediate project. These will be explored with SKYCITY management as part of discussions regarding an overall agreement, with a view to working with SKYCITY in the future to advance these potential improvements.
Other improvements to be considered in the future include:
• Re-look at the Hobson Street pedestrian frontages.
• Re- look at Hobson Street, and the possibility of two-waying the street, along with other streetscape measures.
So overall a pretty interesting development, however, looking at how the roof over the street between midcity and Albert street has turned out, this could also turn out to be a pretty grotty space.
At the rate Auckland City is going this shared space will be the first one finished as there doesn’t seem to have been any progress on any of the others.
Elliot St, Fort St, Jean Baten Pl, and Lorne Street will all be finished by the RWC next year. Elliot street is supposed to begin in June.
rtc – I hope, but I share Matt’s concerns. It doesn’t take much to delay this past the RWC…
By the way, the link lane to Eden Park is supposed to be shared space too…
I am no architect or planner. But I quite like glass buildings in the air…don’t think they necessarily detract from a space. In fact, sometimes make it more interesting.
ABSOLUTELY GREAT!! GET ON WITH IT!!
Awesome stuff I think. The loss of a small part of airspace is insignificant compared to the likely benefits.
Hell, looking at the current streetview picture above, you can see you wouldn’t loose a whole lot of light down there anyway.
It’s also an area with little in the way of heritage structures, so some modern “out there” design can fit in and work really well.
Well Elliot street is signed off, so too is Fort street stage 1 and Jean Batten Place, so these are all go and will be started on in the next few months. Lorne St outside the library should start early next year. I think the Skycity project has the potential to be delayed as to have it done by the RWC Skycity was it to be completely signed off in 4 weeks from what I read. This is pushing it a little, considering the design of the ‘roof’ is far from clear. Unless care is taken this space could become a noisey, wind tunnel, which is dark and undesirable. If you look at this image (http://i297.photobucket.com/albums/mm228/rytc1980/Screenshot2010-05-10at44831PM.png) you can see that at present the sky is the only ‘bright’ part of this alley at present. I still feel on the whole this project should be supported.