Yesterday Panuku Development Auckland (PDA) held a blessing of sites for the next big round of construction at Wynyard valued at around $1 billion and consisting of both residential and commercial developments. PDA have also released a video showing how the area will develop over the next 5 years.

A number of Council owned development sites in Wynyard Quarter have been blessed this morning in preparation for $1 billion of construction about to begin.

The sites spread across a block of land bordered by Beaumont, Pakenham Street West, Halsey and Madden Streets,will eventually be the location for 500 new homes and 48,000 m2 of commercial space.

Panuku Development Auckland as the landowner and masterplanner on behalf of Auckland Council will oversee the development being delivered by partners Precinct Properties (commercial) and Willis Bond Ltd (residential) and their respective contractors and consultants.

More than 50 percent of the first tranche of homes has been pre-sold with works expected to get underway next month on 113 homes on the Wynyard Central site bordered by Daldy and Pakenham St West, and in November on 51 apartments at 132 Halsey St.

Meanwhile initial works will begin in less than a fortnight on the first two major commercial building projects referred to as Mason Bros (current Southern Spas building) and Innovation 5A. Approximately half of the commercial buildings will consist of workings space as part of the Grid – the Wynyard Quarter innovation precinct.

Deputy Mayor Penny Hulse says the day marks the changing waterfront landscape and a strategic use of publicly owned land assets.

“It’s important we take the time to mark the passing of the land from its former industrial use to the location for a new residential and working community as it also recognises the significance of the historical links of the waterfront to mana whenua in Tamaki Makaurau.”

“Leveraging the use of these important Council landholdings is important as it delivers significant financial returns and optimises the use of this prime waterfront land in a way that will offer long term economic benefits for the city centre and the region.”

Interim Chief Executive of Panuku Development Auckland John Dalzell says after opening up the western edge of Auckland’s waterfront in 2011, with more public spaces, restaurants and bars, the central precinct of Wynyard Quarter will be an important next step.

“What we’re talking about here is setting an exemplar for medium density development for the region. Building designs will inspire and new behaviours will be encouraged through approaches to recycling, energy and water conservation and generation, walking and cycling amenities, car parking and transport.”

“It won’t just be tenant or homeowners who are set to benefit from the development either as with 11,000 m2 of new laneways and open spaces, including nearly 1,300 metres of retail space; visitors to Wynyard Quarter will be able to experience a whole new part of the city.”

Wynyard Quarter will continue to develop over the next 15 years. Construction is already underway on the new ASB waterfront theatre which is due to open late next year while work will begin early next year on a five star hotel on the former Emirates Team New Zealand site after consent approved earlier this month.

Here are some images of the site to give a better understand of what’s proposed.

WQ central precinct_diagram overview

132 Halsey – Residential- Athfield Architects – Corner Madden and Halsey St

132 Halsey

132 Halsey - South End
At the southern end where it meets a new lane

Wynyard Central – Residential – Architectus – Corner Daldy and Packenham St

Wynyard Central

Artisan Lane – Architectus – behind Wynyard Central

Artisan Lane

Mason Bros – Commercial – Warren and Mahoney – Pakenham St east of Wynyard Central

Mason Bros - South End
South End
Mason Bros - North End
North End

Innovation 5A – Commercial – Warren and Mahoney – Madden St and North of Mason Bros building

Building 5A
North End

The area is certainly going to be a hive of activity over the coming years.

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48 comments

  1. A school out on Wynyard Point with fields that can be used by the public would be a huge asset. Means that families would be attracted to this area for living and working too. At some stage soon a new school is going to be required in the central city with all this development going on.

    1. Strongly agreed the bottleneck of raising family in cbd is lack of public primary and secondary school within walking distance.

    1. Thinking about when I’ve been at North Wharf, I would think this area all sits at least a couple of metres above sea level.

    2. I think the last tsunami to hit Auckland was only about 1m high by the time it got to the Waitemata Harbour. It was a bit of an anticlimax.

    3. From what I recall, the islands of the Waitemata effectively shield the isthmus — or at least the inner harbour area — from any tsunami threat by chomping up all its energy.

      EDIT: Here you go.

      “While our results demonstrate that the 2,500 year hazard to the densely populated east coast of Auckland is relatively low because of its location in the ‘shadow zone’ behind the Coromandel Peninsular and Great Barrier Island, there is a demonstrably high tsunami hazard from the Kermadec Trench affecting many other areas of northern New Zealand, particularly the east coasts of the Coromandel Peninsular, Great Barrier Island and the Northland Peninsular north of Auckland”

      Source: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Philip_Gillibrand/publication/234077129_A_Probabilistic_Tsunami_Hazard_Study_of_the_Auckland_Region_Part_I_Propagation_Modelling_and_Tsunami_Hazard_Assessment_at_the_Shoreline/links/09e4150ee04e33e01f000000.pdf

    1. Let’s hope not. Docklands is an epic failure (you can find many articles stating so). It’s soulless and when the workers go home, it’s dead. I think Wynyard has more people around it thankfully.

    2. More boring monotonous architecture. All I see is square, square, square with bland colours. Hopefully it will look great in the flesh when all done.

      1. Amen. It’s very hard and angular, not warm and welcoming. But it’s all NZ architects know how to do, and they probably consider it “innovative.”

      2. I like architecture that has strong lines. And anyway, the key thing is ensuring the buildings integrate with the street at a human scale and in an attractive way. From what I can tell these buildings look pretty good in terms of their street level interaction. Nothing “amazing”, but then again monumental architecture tends to not be at a human scale and thereby destroys the areas around it.

        So I’m feeling pretty positive about what I’m seeing here … the key thing will be ensuring enough residential development to provide a constant backdrop of activity that sustains local businesses and makes it feel like “somewhere you can always go” for a walk.

        1. The Taj Mahal has strong lines. Cathedral de Notre Dame has strong lines. The Eiffel Tower has strong lines. St Basil’s Cathedral has strong lines. The Parthenon has strong lines. There is more to beauty than strong, straight lines forming a box. Every three year old starts his design career by drawing boxes with strong lines. The good ones move beyond that.

  2. As usual pedestrians are shunted into traffic by all this development, but huge trucks and other equipment are able to speed around mindlessly

  3. I’m concerned about putting all these people in an area with poor transport connections.

    How are these people going to access the heavy rail system, bus system or utilise cars?

    It doesn’t seem to be a great area to be developing in this manner.

    1. You got it in one. It would be a great place to retire to. I am not being a smart arse, I really am thinking about it. So long as you have one carpark and only want to go places outside the peaks it would be perfect. But if you have to travel anywhere in the peak it sucks.

    2. Poor transport options? NEX on Fanshaw St, buses (incl CityLink) every 5 mins or so, a pedestrian bridge linking the area to the Viaduct. 10 minute walk to Britomart. No, no options at all.

    3. Poor transport links? Oh my. Busway at less than 500m, main train station at 1km, various cycleways to several directions, ferries, a motorway interchange… a plethora of transport riches.

    4. I walk a good 10-15 minutes to get to my trains. In this location you can get to so many public transport in less than 10minutes (~5 minutes to Britomart)
      You cant expect every public transport to stop right outside their door.

    5. Graham Henry would disagree with you. He just bought an apartment in 132 Halsey saying:
      “We’ve got family and grandchildren in Auckland too, so we’re keen to remain around them and be around the water too – I like to go fishing. The other real positive is we’ve got a place on Waiheke and the ferry building is only five minutes walk away, so we can go over to Waiheke any time.”

  4. In Melbourne Docklands tramlines were extended to new areas as the buildings were finished. It is also very walkable, and a lot of pedestrians walk the 500 m from offices to Southern Cross Station. About 80% appear to walk to the station, and 20% take the tram. However Wynyard Quarter is 1 km from Britomart so the ratios would probably reverse.

    1. Yes, when you have a tram network you can extend it! AT would like to have an LRT route to extend here. But what we can do is extend the bus system there, see Nick above. Clearly the area has a station on every Rail-to-the-Shore plan, but instead there is a very backward, wasteful, and destructive plan to build six more traffic lanes across there instead.

  5. I love how when our wonderful development agency thinks “new area”, all they can put together is more pro-capitalist bourgeois claptrap
    Be nice if the almighty Mammon wasn’t so heavily regarded
    I mean heaven forbid instead of private development we get a school or a museum or a park or some fields… nope, just more shops

      1. Thanks Steve! Much better approach to doing things. The ones down by the old railway station are basically worthless according to TradeMe 🙁

  6. Any mitigations against rising sea levels built in? Not saying that they’ll be submerged any time soon but with regard to more frequent and severe storm surges I can see some potential flooding problems arising in the future. Or does the harbour generally protect from storm surges?

    1. New studies are suggesting we might get 3m within a hundred years. Venice style cities will be rather passé if that happens.
      I would be peeved if Joe Public are asked to pay the costs of mitigation when anyone buying from here on in has had good enough information to make their decision.

      1. Problem is easily solved by allowing Ports of Auckland to continue their expansion which soon enough will block off the entrance to the harbour turning it into a lake.

        1. I still think the Wynyard area would be the best place for a new national stadium with it’s transport connections close by to all parts of Auckland, and with the bars and cafes nearby as well. There would still be room for the parks at the North end. And even better with good PT links in a confined space it could be the first stadium in NZ to have no carparking! It would mean that the dog that is Eden Park could be sold off for residential development which is where I’d prefer residential development to be rather than more of what we’ve already got on the waterfront. The profits from the Eden Park area development could be used to pay for the stadium building. Once again though, it seems we’re going to get more of the same, same from a visionless Auckland.

          I’ve also got questions about the new theatre next to the ASB building currently going up. Is this to provide a size of theatre venue in Auckland we don’t currently have or is it going to be taking away patronage from similarly sized other theatre venues including Aotea Centre? I have no solid views on this development, merely I was surprised when I saw the funding campaign and now construction, and wondering what the rationale for it is.

          BTW, rather than the slug standing empty most of the time, why don’t we develop it into a Rugby World Cup 1987 & 2011 Museum? It was a focal point of the latter event and would give Auckland another attraction. I can’t understand why someone hasn’t made that idea a reality.

  7. Only 500 residential units does not bring enough population to make the laneways commercially viable for shops and amenity to survive. This kind of density only allow a few lunch cafes for the office workers, and a few resturants and convience shops.

    It will be similar to the streets around viaduct harbour. I reckon only the street in the water-front be busy and the rest of the laneways be very quiet.

  8. IIRC we were promised a lot more residential units spread out through the whole development ie ground floor retail, offices floors above, and then topped off with apartment floors. This of course went out the window (as it always does) when the developers told council it would be more economic to split the blocks into separate units ie one block residential one block commercial. But of course it’s not a 50/50 split.
    Has anyone else actually been down and looked at buying an apartment? We did, but found we’d need to spend $2 – $3m for something of the size needed for our family (and that included recognising that apartment living meant downsizing and living compactly). So clearly the residential is designed for trust fund kids and wealthy empty nesters.
    (and yet why do I get the feeling in 10 years time I’ll be saying “if only I’d bought there back in 2015?)

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