I’ve talked before about how it feels like the city is about to burst back to life with construction activity with so many apartment buildings being proposed all over the place. A few weeks ago we launched a page to keep track of them all but most are still only in a proposal stage and not actually under construction. But some are and what is probably the first new tower to be built since the GFC is now well under way at New Lynn. Here are a couple of shots of it under construction. The rust covered building it is being built on top of is a multi -storey carpark that is being managed by Auckland Transport. The train station is on the other side of the building.
This is really going to transform New Lynn as it rises. However interestingly it appears the developers are now selling a second stage that will use the rest of the space above the carpark for what appear to be a series of town houses.
I must say it seems really odd having town houses perched up in the air above a carpark. Hopefully though both parts of the development will fill up as from walking around New Lynn the one thing the place really needs is some people. A lot of money has been put into improving public space for pedestrians but at the moment it’s so empty just doesn’t work For example there are two shared spaces but due to the lack of people, cars are using them as rat runs and racing down them doing 60km/h despite tens of millions having been spent to build a new roads to bypass the town centre.
In the CBD another recent development to add to the list is the Fiore II. It is being built above the Wong Doo building on the corner of Hobson St and Cook St as shown below (with the Fiore I building behind it).
However due to the heritage status of the Wong Doo building, it can’t be demolished and so the developer is basically building over the top of it in a way I think look hideous with big square boxes dominating over the historic building.
Perhaps it’s just a really bad image of what is proposed and the finished product will look better – but then it is on the their website.
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Bring it on…. Can we now just miss put the stage where we build a multi-story carpark next to every new a Transit station? Those tens of millions should go into making those Stations better sooner. This is another example of our transport infrastructure investment and consenting processes being seriously conflicted and confused. A memo from the top, perhaps?
Aren’t these car-storage-buildings required due to MPRs?
No that carpark is due to the old Waitakere City Council demanding that Infratil build one as part of redevelopment of the site which used to be a bus station (which is now on public land)
Something that puzzles the hell out of me in New Lynn is why there is no left turn from Rankin Ave on to the Clark Street bypass. Instead of being able to, you know, actually use the expensive bypass, Rankin traffic is forced to go through the Totara shared space. Makes no sense whatsoever.
The main tower of the New Lynn development looks really nice; the townhouses look a tad strange, but more in a good way than a bad way. As for Fiore II, I thought these kinds of brutalist developments had long since been abolished, but it seems I was mistaken…
Not Brutalist at all. Too much glass, not enough mass. Do you simply mean multistory? What it most particularly is is facadism.
Sorry, brutalist wasn’t the right description. But it’s big, boxy and in my opinion it really doesn’t look good perched on top of a heritage building.
Nothing wrong with Facedism, lots wrong with bad facadism.
Fiore II looks like a ’70’s design like Park residences. Can we get some architects in NZ with a bit of imagination and style. Patrick, why aren’t you designing some things?
Not an architect. The two ways to getting improved design in the buildings are evident in Sydney and Melbourne:
1. An Urban Design Panel process with teeth. A proper Council enforced design quality review process that the granting of resource consent is dependent on the project passing.
2. A market that rewards better design by being willing to pay more for it.
The second is a result of a more mature market, and I’m confident will slowly grow here, as it has in Aus. The first we could put in place tomorrow, hell, today.
Hey there one other thing though. Hobson and Nelson are basically residential streets, and increasingly so. We really have to change the motorway design there with urgency.
On the subject of building quality here is Dr Libby Farrelly [a kiwi resident in Aus] talking about her favourite Sydney Buildings. Video a bit amateurish but really good insight from Libby:
http://www.smh.com.au/action/externalEmbeddedPlayer?id=d-2xdx9
1 Bligh St is quite stunning. We’ve built some good quality office space in Auckland’s CBD. The SAP building, (even though I lost quite a bit of money on him many years ago! – the two Robt Jones Investment buildings: ANZ Tower and Chorus building. Metropolis is a good quality apartment, Stamford residences, Federal terraces, in the heritage side, Carlisle.
The trick is for developers to feel the need for quality apartment buildings, including the exterior and your comment, Patrick, of the need to establish a functioning urban design panel will assist this. These things are there for many years, of course, and we should have a bit more say in what goes up.
We have a stunning city skyline (by accident!) looking from the north shore and coming up, a great set of trains. We need to keep the quality up.
I think it is a given that Hobson and Nelson won’t change until after CRL is finished.
No reason that should be given. Flow shouldn’t be that affected: They aren’t even efficient now, with only one half working at a time.
Re CRL; first make a lane each way on Queen St full time bus lanes, move all Albert St buses to Queen. May need to enforce a city by-law that these routes can only be served by the cleanest buses in our fleets. Even give bus companies a year to retool if necessary. Of course private cars can be removed from here any time, which will also help keep the air breathable:
http://greaterakl.wpengine.com/2011/08/30/guest-post-why-are-there-cars-on-queen-st/
May have to lock city-bus-hater-in-chief Alex Sweny in a cupboard for a while.
The bus network redesign appears to remove buses many from Albert St anyway. Looks like just the ones heading North-West are left, with the North Shore ones going East-West down Wellesley St. But during CRL construction will either have to use Queen or Hobson/Nelson.
CRL will stop permanent pedestrianisation of Queen, but can still have weekend closures.
“CRL will stop permanent pedestrianisation of Queen, but can still have weekend closures”
Do you mean just during construction or post?
Yeh I mean during construction, AT will insist on it begin open as diversionary route while cut and cover done.
I quite like those townhouses in the sky. Will certainly be a unique look.
As for Nelson and Hobson, can the Council do what it wants with them or does it need NZTA’s permission since they’re basically giant on/off ramps? Or do they just not want to piss NZTA off?
I don’t know whether NZTA is opposed or not – they may actually support it.
But assuming NZTA were opposed, even if the council did two-way the streets at 100% local expense (since NZTA wouldn’t chip in the government’s usual 50%), they can’t make NZTA swap around the offramps. We’d have to send all of Nelson Street’s southbound traffic and all of Hobson Street’s northbound traffic east through Union Street (or even Cook Street) to get to or from the right motorway ramp. That’s not really a goer.
Incidentally, to quote the SkyCity convention centre agreement (p39) –
So it’s on someone’s radar at central government. Or to be cynical, possibly someone at MED or DPMC just phoned Auckland Council, asked for a laundry list of stuff that would make it easier to get a resource consent for the convention centre, and put it all in the agreement verbatim. But at least that means that Auckland Council thinks it’s important.
I agree with Ari in that Hobson and Nelson won’t change until after the CRL. But not because there’s an interdependency – just because redoing streets costs a bit of money, money which the CRL itself will be eating up, and even if there is a little spare cash, Quay Street and Victoria Street seem like they’d be higher priorities politically.
I dont see why it has to be an expensive exercise to close Queen Street. Just do what New York did in Times Square – paint, bollards and outdoor furniture from Bunnings.
If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere (take it away Frank!)
Queen Street could be cheap as to pedestrianise. But any decent plan for Hobson and Nelson streets is going to involve two-waying and probably moving the kerbs, both of which cost lots more than an afternoon at Bunnings.
Hmm, good points, and that excerpt is very interesting. Thanks!
Those town houses kind of remind me of those small apartments on top of the parking building in Newmarket, although bigger by the looks of them. Would be interesting place to live to say the least.
At least this will be one lot of townhouses that (hopefully!) won’t be dominated by garages…
Sort of Liz! Did you not notice that vast garage under them! But I know what you mean. All houses now are dominated on their street elevations by a near limitless garage maw, that usually complimented by a fearful wall with keypad protected gate. Miserable streetscape.
Where are the three bedroom apartments?
That’s something I’ve been wondering myself…
Same as the Park Residences, biggest ones are two bedders.
We may be in the market for a three bedroom place in 12-24 months. I despair at the lack of affordable / higher-density options available to us. “Thou shalt livest in expensive suburbia”, it seems.
(and by expensive suburbia, I don’t mean we’re looking at the high end, I mean suburbia anywhere in Auckland is expensive!)
And that (3/4 bedrooms) is one of the big problems Andrew. As I get older I’m beginning to contemplate apartment living (no exterior maintenance or gardens, although I already contract those items out) and have looked at 88 Broadway, for example. A four-bedroom three-bathroom 160sqm apartment there (plus two carparks) is priced at $1.7m. That wouldn’t leave much change after selling my townhouse of more than twice that size, so why bother? The only other reason for moving would be to eliminate stairs, but these apartments don’t have internal lifts anyway. I’ve priced a retrofitted lift at around $40k, less than agents’ fees. I don’t mind downsizing, but it just doesn’t stack up.
single level apartments are a must…. developer must have rocks in his head if he’s happy to cut out older more cashed-up buyers.
Take it easy on Jonno, Patrick!
Ha ha, Patrick’s right, we oldies do gravitate to single level over time. I’ve even looked at single level houses in the ‘burbs – still a million bucks.