This is a guest post by Ben van Bruggen of The Urban Room,.An earlier version of this post appeared on LinkedIn. All images are by Ben.
Have you noticed that there’s almost nowhere on Queen Street that invites you to stop, sit outside and enjoy a coffee, let alone a meal? Many who visited last year’s pop-up Urban Room on Quay Street noted that Queen Street still feels like a place to hurry through on your way to somewhere else. The city centre’s vibrancy hinges not just on retail but also on its social and experiential offerings—workspaces, educational institutions, bars, cafés, and places where people want to be. The criticism is that Queen Street is lacking on all of these fronts.
Some efforts are underway. For example, Fable – a hotel at the lower end of Queen Street, home to Cooke’s restaurant and bar – is trialling outdoor seating, with two high tables and bar stools. But these are hard to spot amid the urban clutter of planters and street furniture. It remains to be seen how many people will actually use them.
Auckland Council is actively encouraging outdoor dining in the city centre, including on Queen Street, by offering fee-free trials to food and beverage (F&B) operators and seeking feedback on how to improve the situation. However, the rules say that cafés and restaurants must provide a clear line of sight for their outdoor areas from the serving counter, which isn’t always practical. Fable manages this with a concierge, but serving food and drinks across a busy pavement presents logistical challenges — challenges that are routinely navigated in other cities.
Queen Street’s design does allow for zones dedicated to outdoor dining and other activities. Where there is alignment between an outdoor dining zone and a F&B outlet, like outside Melba, the space seems workable. However, a three-metre clear path for pedestrians is required, which limits the placement of tables. Operators must choose between placing tables near the building or by the road — there’s no room for both. The small space adjacent to the road is further squeezed by a requirement that there be a 600mm buffer from traffic. The result is just a few additional seats – a table and two chairs, not a party of six – hardly enough to justify hiring extra staff to manage them. This is a key reason why cafés and restaurants are not seizing the opportunity.
Building owners also seem resistant, often unwilling or unable to make necessary adaptations, like installing kitchen extraction systems for prospective F&B outlets. And then there’s the issue of storage — tables and chairs need to be stored away when businesses close, adding another layer of complexity. (But also offering opportunities for design: why not team up with a furniture manufacturer?)
Of course, the city’s little laneways have long seen the potential, as in the image of Vulcan Lane above. Interestingly, cross-streets like Wellesley Street and Victoria Street seem to be faring better with outdoor dining than the Golden Mile itself, despite their challenging topography. One can already envision, for example, how much more vibrant places like Scarecrow could become once place-making projects like Te Hā Noa are completed.
The challenges to extrapolating this al fresco energy to Queen St are not insurmountable – but it will take a more cohesive approach. It’s time to connect the dots between different stakeholders and agencies to make this happen. It will require more imagination, and a precinct-wide strategy, and reconsidering the current use of space, including the number and placement of planters and benches. All of which is doable if we want to transform our main street into a “central social district” – a CSD, not just a CBD.
Could Queen Street become the go-to destination for socialising in the summer? The potential is certainly there – as long as we can seize it.
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One thing to note is the almost complete lack of bars on Queen Street itself. Other than the Jax Munster across from Aotea Square, and the bunch around Q theatre, there is nothing. I’m not saying bring back the QF – it’s still there anyway, on Wyndham – but a well run operation would be good for the tourists who stroll looking for something to do past 6 pm..
I noticed this a few years back. Warm day, following the wife around Q St shopping and I was gagging for a beer (don’t judge me) to rest the legs, cool the throat and sit and watch the world go by.
Nothing.
Went to the The Terrace café other day right in front / part of Aotea Centre which was pretty nice to look out at the views from the deck. Bit more up market than the Munster Inn. Yes, sure is a lack on the strip it self.
Good thing about that street furniture for Cooke’s Restaurant & Bar is now it would be noticed, had no idea it was there.
Would be great to see something like this instead of the monotony of crap shopping, although probably up against the high? rents, a lot of the shop fronts are retail large spaces.
Would also need proper dining shelters built with heaters inside otherwise it’ll be cold and windy for a lot of the year – think Lygon st in Melbourne or something.
Eating out is a favourite activity for most of us.
Commercial Bay is very popular with a great variety of foods.
Our parks are busy too, attracting 1000s and their cafes are often full.
At Pah Homestead over the weekend there were long queques.
The cafes at Wynyard Quarter, Cornwall Park, the Museum and Wintergardens and the Botanic Gardens are always packed. Motat, Western Springs and the Zoo are our top attractions and the cafes are doing very well
So ,Queen St still not realizing it’s potential ,as it continues to cater for cars.
Are there enough potential customers to make it work?
Auckland is already full of nice places to sit outside and eat – Wynyard Quarter and the viaduct are probably #1, then you have the lower level of commercial bay, a few laneways around fort street, Vulcan Lane as mentioned, Chancery square, Takutai Square above britomart, Federal St under the sky tower, and of course theres Ponsonby Rd which competes with the CBD for dining and entertainment (and does it better in most ways too).
It seems like a primary reason for the ‘death’ of queen street is that there just arent enough people to go around, and they have been won over by newer, cleaner, more scenic locations such as the waterfront and commercial bay. Attracting more people to Queen Street is great – but will there be enough visitors to go around? Or will it be a great success but kill off another part of the city as a consequence?
Queen Street would look much nicer without the old fashioned dreadful canopies overhanging the footpaths. They are past their use by dates in NZ. They make it feel dark and dirty and allows beggars etc to hang around. This is why Queen Street between about Aotea Sq and Britomart is such a dump at the moment. If you look at Vulcan Lane photo, no canopies and much brighter and inviting.
I can count at least two canopies in the picture of Vulcan Lane.
Given that it rains in Auckland literally half the days of each year, we need *more* canopies for pedestrians. Perhaps transparent ones would be smarter though?
It wasn’t that long ago the Council architect was spouting about there was more rain in the UK cities and they had no awnings. He was wrong. The awnings are there for good reason. Raising them higher up the building face and shortening them as happened on newer buildings has turned them into useless ornaments and the pedestrian space below inhospitable. This happening when the idea is encourage transition from driving vehicles…
The worst thing about the UK is the complete lack of canopies. They are a Greta idea but MUST be maintained, something NZ businesses/landlords do not seem to do well.
“and allows beggars etc to hang around.”
What an argument. Lets just put some spikes on the seats too, that will discourage them even more, after the removal of canopies fails to resolve the fact that we have poor people where richer people might see them.
It’s depressing how social engineering re poor people tends to gravitate to this: Get them away! Rather than “why does poverty like this even exist” – especially in a country where beggars are pretty much 100% “home grown” in our own flourishing capitalism.
I understand that beggars (especially aggressive ones) are a problem – and more so for a retail business that needs people to feel comfortable enough to stop. But please stop making these casual, cruel comments. It isn’t fixing anything, it just treats human people like dirt you can waterblast away if someone just gave our city a good cleaning!
There is unfortunately so much classism and dehumanization that’s normalized towards homeless people in this country.
Seems Cities Skylines II having problems with homeless too:
“Now, let’s talk about homelessness in the game. When citizens lose their homes, either because they cannot afford them or because they get destroyed, they become homeless. If they can afford it, they will leave the city, and if they cannot, they will find temporary shelter in your city’s parks or abandoned buildings. This is where they tended to get stuck, unable to find new homes or leave the city. Patch 1.1.8 contains a series of fixes to make sure those homeless households have a chance to get back on their feet.”
Also thought this was a chuckle:
“Fixed sick citizen might [get] stuck on pedestrian lanes”
Police and that community group on the beat should sort undesirable activity by their mere presence. Also more people that aren’t beggars out enjoying themselves and they will fade into the background. All big cities have it’s share of beggars, homeless and pick-pockets. Paris Metro at some stations bad for that I hear.
Perhaps a city centre hospitality group could have a donation “tip” system where the extra $ goes towards meals at the City Mission.
But do police and community support really sort that out?
I work on Queen Street and I don’t know anyone that enjoy a stroll on Queen Street. Most my female colleagues are genuinely scared to even venture from the busstop to the office, they all have experiences of threats, screaming drugged up addicts violating their personal space and a general feeling of lawlessness. The entire vibe on Queen Street is one of people using drugs loitering around looking for their next victim. As a man, its easy to dismiss these views. Say that its safe, but when the perception is that its not safe at all among female colleagues, we need to actually address the concern rather than be dismissive.
Would lots more outdoor seating improve the poor safety and reduce the drugged up loitering delinquents, most likely.
But its not an easy task to persuade those who work on Queen Street to venture out to enjoy. We have seen the lanes, the shops close down, we see weekly thievery and have drugged up individuals that circle around the street. Personal safety has gotten immensely worse from 2020 and onwards. That’s 4 years of perceived threats to personal safety and it’d take a few years of safe experiences to change that perception.
Yes, a large number of people (including 501s) were rehoused in city centre accommodation during Covid when foreign students disappeared.
That will switch around I guess, but agree it will take a while before word reaches enough of us from people sharing the city centre that it is safer and more comfortable to be there.
Yes, and agree with above that more dining will help that.
We need Police cameras and Police command station in CBD. Make sure everyone knows that you at going to get caught. I would be happy to see Police Drone in the air as well if i thought we could stat catching Ram Raiders.
Auckland has two modes, raining like a bastard, or sun strong enough to strip the meat from your bones.
Canopies are good.
Shopping malls have canopies that go right across and completely enclose the space. They’re popular.
Queen Street (or the people making the decisions) always seem to know how they want Queen Street to look, but never seem to know what they want it to be and if you go for a jack of all trades it just doesn’t work. Is it a shopping precinct? Is it (going to be) a transit mall focussed on people movement, could it be an eating and night life destination?
Totally agree more outdoor dining, or just generally some hospo offerings other tan hotel cafes would be great…but I’d rather have a plan and work around the plan. Only need to look at other countries to see how to make it work. I still think the eating and dining focus should be on a fully pedestrianised High Street…but we’ve done this song and dance for decades.
Snap.
“but we’ve done this song and dance for decades.”
So? Cities change, interests compete, not all of them can always combine. Beware anyone who is selling you a “finished” city. After the CLR is done, there will be other big projects that need doing, areas that need revitalising or adapting to the fact that it’s a different city than it was 20, or even 10 years before etc.
I don’t think you understand my point around High Street but that’s fine.
Think how nice it would be if the dining was right in the middle of the road as is normal across continental Europe. Would be absolute class.
Me and some friends tried to have a pre-dinner outdoor drink on Saturday night on the Dominion Road.
An effort totally thwarted by a menacing drunken drongo creepily hanging about nearby.
An element of Auckland society that will need to be factored in when pondering how to encourage wage earners to make the most of the City’s restaurants and bars.
Not a mention of this “issue” in the story. How out of touch can you be?
High St minus vehicles suits way better. Queen is often shaded and bleak. So much fixation on one street at the expense of others.
Queen street? We must not be talking about the same Queen St. Could think of over 20 reasons why you wouldn’t want to dine there but I’ll point out the obvious. It smells, there’s deros, it’s a wind tunnel, it’s cold, no view,it’s dark, Too many people walking through it. So to answer the question. No.
Yeah, Queen Street has always been cold and windy, not that nice of a spot to sit around.
Was there yesterday and took note of the sun coming down nicely on the east side. Probably has to be more in the middle of the day or summer but that’s fine and up the top when you get to Aotea it ready opens up a course or down the bottom. Besides, when is any other place in Auckland not windy and rainy? Plenty of suburbs. We are not Bordeaux.
Sat on the nice bench seats in the sun a couple of times on the way down, trees nearby and all. It’s good most of that bike/scooter/fast walk/run path is on that side for that reason probably.
Sure would be better for dining if electric quiet light rail went down the middle of it rather than even say, electric buses. This would give it an uplift, as for sure, as mentioned the lane ways, and Commercial Bay etc have given it some hard competition.
Exactly.
One or two commenters here miss the point that an electric tram every few minutes would make for a more pleasant and safer pedestrian-transit mall environment than an electric bus every few seconds.
Yes, but why let best be the enemy of better.
I don’t know when we will get LR down Queen St but probably not in my lifetime, after Labour dropped the ball and the center right is ideologically opposed to anything on rails for the punters.
Get electric buses down there ASAP and prove the point for LR later.
Agree on High St as a dining district off the back of the shared space, but get Queen St from Mayoral Drive south as a transit mall (buses, cycles, scooters) ASAP.
This attitude, is exactly why LR will take so long. When Politian’s hear this, they hear luke warm. They need to head strident ongoing support.
This article is totally on point. Where we create extra space on our streets we need local businesses to be at the forefront of filling that space with interesting things that improve the streetscape. We should be open to any and all ideas to at least be trialed, from retail as well, not just f & b. Where we are successful in improving streetscapes we need to maximize this success for businesses to make the next projects easier to implement. When we have businesses and politicians asking for these upgrades out of envy for places like Queen St and Te Ha Noa, we will hopefully get a snowball effect for more roll outs.
Council has tried to make an opportunity for outdoor dining around the CBD streets (not just Queen St) with simple rules that enable equitable trading opportunities. Now up to building owners and tenants to make the effort. Waihorotiu seems to have washed the retail out of the valley onto the foreshore. Now think of it as opportunity, not loss.
The opportunity for a transit mall its full length.
street front premises cost how much per sqm?
Add council rates – easily north of $500 per week…
Change of use process through the council – very difficult
Many building owners/ occupiers – esp. if there’s residential above, do not want food retail because of the noise and smell
Getting kitchen ventilation through many of the buildings – esp. heritage – nearly impossible
Queen st after dark… at the moment it is absolutely dead. Last few night, a shot fired down it wouldnt have hit anyone…
Who is going to be the first brave soul to try tackling the above?
Totally agree and would love to see more al fresco dining. In Aotea Square too! There is a proposal for a development above a heritage bank (where the Macdonalds used to be) which incorporates a dining room in the old banking hall with a flash ceiling. I’m all for it – if this can be connected to the street with tables overlooking or on the footpath, so much the better.
The renders I saw somewhere had a street balcony.
Queen Street is incalculably more pleasant than it was even a few years ago, thanks to the aggressive pedestrianisation that is now expanding around the city centre.
Cars are still the main issue, in what could be the perfect boulevard, there is still free movement for carboy and cargirls, and the rest of our motor normative society.
Vulcan Lane is successful as it is not a vehicle through route, so sitting there feels instinctively safe, and obviously breathing less pollutants is a positive.
Until Waihorotiu is restored to its Taniwha status, as a meandering slow trip, never on motorised wheels, Queen Street will continue to suffer from its centuries of human disregard.
Outside dining is what usually defines waterfront cities, so Auckland needs to continue to improve its spaces so that more persons are happy to rest for a meal on their wander through the city, rather than the fast food grab and go that still dominates the city; contributing nothing to any person’s health, and keeping rubbish visible to any observant visitor.
bah humbug
When all the pavement extensions were happening on Queenstreet during the pandemic I actually thought that little food carts and al-fresco dining was going to be the end goal. I do like the scooter/cycle lane but it’s actually a bit unnecessary now that you could pretty safely do the same along Queen Street on the road itself since there’s way less traffic.
Yes, food carts could be more the thing to give it some life like you see on New York streets or something. Might be more realistic given the lease prices for proper stores along here, and the more desirable it is the more expensive it would become.
BTW here’s a small setup on O’Connell St for “Mojo Vulcan Lane”
https://maps.app.goo.gl/BiYFC7EkFHaiF5XX8
If you go back in time you can see more down by DeBretts kitchen etc.
There is a lot of demand for Nice Night Clubs evening street dancing
-The New Queen Street is awesome upgrade.
-Auckland CBD is a beautiful CBD and lovely layout, streets new and old and beautful parks.
-We need a a lot more fun foodie, and Bars, but also. We need some large retail.
-A proper Warehouse a Kmart a Hardware store and perhaps a real Electronics shop.
-Surplus Tronics.. Thats the day the culture changed. 🙁 Hope it comes back again
I can’t think of anything less desirable than making a special trip to Queen Street to sit on the side of the road eating. But each to their own.
Back in the old days Queen Street might have been the one place you could go find certain goods and stores. These days suburban malls and online shopping largely replace that so the dream of restoring it as a shopping destination seems a bit optimistic. Probably time to just let it slip quietly into the night. Queen Street really needs to rely on the worker drones who have no choice but to go there each day and have businesses that suit their needs rather than trying to be a ‘destination’.
I can’t see the fascination of eating on the road edge. People sitting at little tables on the road edge reading their Saturday paper in Mt Eden village make me laugh. How could this be pleasant with vehicles buzzing inches from you?
Hence the need to make it vehicle free. I wonder if it will turn into more of a university town over time.
If living in an inner city is what makes you ‘Human’ I’ll take my smaller suburban neighbourhood where we know each other, smile and talk with our neighbours while out walking on the reserves and beach. No hoverboards here. I’d much rather have neighbours asking what fish I caught for dinner as I pull the kayak out than have a homeless person hit me up for spare change. The neighbourhood dogs all play with each other out walking while the owners talk. People enjoy a nice swim in the ocean rather than a pool. But sure you do ‘Human’ living in your compact box in your inner city hellscape. Each to their own I guess.
Why not make it completely vehicle free directing tucks, buses, cyclists and scooters down side streets. You still don’t solve the problem that you’re dining in a rather unappealing urban canyon.
And in university towns overseas the ‘Student Ghetto’ is a thing. I don’t see a prevalence of partying students attracting others back to the area. Quite the reverse. But if businesses can latch onto that customer base as their new source of prosperity, good on them.
There is just no need for private cars to be there. No parks, no entrances to parking buildings, nothing to access that can’t be done via one of the streets going east-west, as was planned for under A2E. Its just cruising for cruising sakes.
Surely its time to stop fighting it and actually give it a try? Make a transit mall for buses, bikes and scooters. Trial it and see what happens.
There’s nowhere you can bike bus, or scooter to that you can’t walk through from an adjacent street. Go all the way then you won’t be having to say later, “maybe people didn’t like eating next to buses with cyclists whizzing by inches for their ears, maybe we should have gone pedestrian only’. There’s enough pedestrian only shopping and dining enclaves in the suburbs to show that the concept is popular.
The transit mall would, overnight:
– improve PT times down Queen St. People say you can still walk faster than the Red Bus. Crazy
– traffic flow going east-west would be enhanced because it would not need to be stopped as many times or as long at the intersections
– noise and air pollution would drastically improve, something you said was a barrier to eating and dining outside there.
Remember; cars have nowhere to go or stop on this street, they only go through it. There are about 8 touchpoints in that (approx.) 1.5km strip where cars can still access the street before turning around or going straight through.
If those like you fighting every single proposal to not put the car first can’t compromose on this 1.5km strip then you won’t compromise anywhere, which of course is your entire position.
Exactly, this is just some weird argument to try avoid any actual change. Lol vehicles buzzing inches from you, bikes whizzing inches from you – where exactly does this happen elsewhere?
The priority for buses is so lacking across the city but should be the number one fix.
Also some people actually sitting out on a road front with a coffee watching the world go by – of course it would be nicer to look out at some beautiful nature scene but kids love seeing buses, trucks, the odd fire engine for example. If you don’t want to eat/drink on Queen st great , don’t go there.
Barry the fact that people ‘don’t go there’ is exactly the reason we’re having this discussion. And I’m completely serious in saying ban all vehicles and go pedestrian only. I see no reason that pedestrian only wouldn’t be better. If I wanted to dine in a bus lane I’d grab a burger and head over to one of the northern busway stations.
Pedestrianisation is not necessary for Queen St. If you are a champion of this, you’d be calling for it in the shared spaces across the CBD. And its strange you would call for this on Queen St when just above you said no one would ever go there.
It has plenty of footpath space already and is a major PT spine. With cars removed there is plenty of space for a ready-made cycle and scooter lane without spending any money. Simeon Brown says “people” don’t want money spent on that stuff, so they should be OK with this one.
If outdoor dining happens, it happens. If it doesnt, we get lots of other wins which I mentioned above.
The real answer that goes unsaid is that there’s nowhere to sit to discourage homeless people.
The cruise ship tourists don’t want to have to look at poors as they’re doing their shopping.
The reality is that Queen St has to compete with fully enclosed Malls that have ZERO traffic running down the center. Why do we still have cars and busses down queen st? Why are we not insisting on a canopies over Queen st to revitalise it? It just seems counter to intuition to keep the street active for cars to me. Busses to Hobson st. I live on Victoria St near Skytower and love Vulcan lane and high st areas on Sat/Sunday as these streets are active, but the rest of the city incl. Q st. is dead on the weekend. I really believe that a series of canopies of some sort and new shops/stalls down the middle of the street would be the best way forward. You could even have the canopies intermittently covering the road in part, allowing sunlight and fresh air. The aim of the canopy is to activate Queen st on a wintery day so people just don’t get wet walking up the street, winding between stalls all along the street, but also allow sun in the summer.
One of the reasons we still have buses down Queen Street is Albert Street has been closed at different sections over the last few years to varying degrees for CRL work, which soon should be over. Western buses can soon return to there once complete.
Canopies would be nice but I don’t know how you “insist”. if it’s tough for businesses now, adding a couple of thousand dollars in costs isn’t going to help. And you’ve done nothing to change it from a traffic sewer for cars.
I see the buses (and bikes, scooters) down Queen St as a point of difference from malls. They deliver thousands and thousands of people every day into this area, stress free. Commercial Bay of course has the best of both worlds.
Worth a try, isn’t it? From 1 Oct (adequate notice period), only buses, bikes and scooters allowed regular access. Emergency vehicles as required, tradespeople can get permits, deliveries prior to 10am. It would hardly cost a thing because to get it started, no new infrastructure would be required.
Then I think we need to make it even easier for the hospo businesses to use the space. It just seems still too hard and onerous to comply.
If its so successful that the streets are flooded with people and we need to shift the buses and active lanes, that will be a good problem to have (and I do like your idea of a strip running down the middle of the road)