Paul Rutherford, whose company Rutherford Signs is producing 10 tables, 20 seats, two chairs, a sofa and stage, as well as direction signs and history panels for the precinct, says everything is designed to create an atmosphere. "It's wharfy and old," he says.
His firm is doing the work at no cost and Aotea Electric has partnered with Mainstreet Tauranga, which represents businesses in the CBD and is leading the project, on the lanterns.
Project manager Sally Cooke says installation of all the furniture and lanterns is scheduled to begin on July 20. The acrylic lanterns have been made in Italy and are being shipped to New Zealand. Ms Cooke said they would help create a great ambience in the precinct regardless of whether people sat indoors or outside.
"Even if you're walking through the street to get a coffee, it'll be a beautiful environment to be in."
To celebrate the precinct launch, a Wharf St Winter Fest is planned for August and September
Tauranga City Council, meanwhile, is responsible for the roading plan, and Ms Cooke says the parties involved settled on a shared space model, whereby vehicles and pedestrians can access the area.
However, closing the road to traffic in the future had not been ruled out,and depended on how the precinct functioned during the launch period.
Shared space is an international concept and popular throughout North America, Europe and Australia.
Auckland had shared spaces on High St, Lorne St and Fort St, while Rotorua had "Eat Streat".
For the Wharf St project, Tauranga City Council consulted experts from other centres, and strategic planner Adele Hadfield said national and overseas experience showed shared space worked well.
"The traffic is slowed down and provided a lot of visual cues about how it should act," Ms Hadfield added.
Cues such as narrow entrances, signs, furniture and planter boxes cause drivers to respond to pedestrians, rather than the other way round.
"If you put things in a street where there are going to be people in the street, they slow down."
Wharf St already had small volumes of traffic, and the entrance would be narrowed by Tauranga Art Gallery and Creative Tauranga to signal to drivers they are entering a slow zone.
In Europe, Ms Hadfield says, shared space has worked on roads exceeding 30,000 vehicle movements a day, so the Wharf St trial would be safe because it was already a short street where cars travelled slowly and there were only about 100 vehicle movements daily.
Mainstreet Tauranga would not disclose the cost of the project, but the council said it has given $10,000 for the launch phase, while other partners include Priority One, Paul Adams, Archistudio, and Wharf St property and business owners.
Mainstreet Tauranga chairman Glenn Tuck said the project is a collaborative effort and he hopes the precinct will show how street-scaping can revitalise the whole downtown area.
Owners relish launch of dining precinct
It is just over a month until the launch of the Wharf Street Dining Precinct, and businesses along the street are buzzing.
"I think it will be fabulous," Spuntino owner Kath McDermott says as she cooks big breakfasts in her restaurant kitchen. "It's very exciting. It will be great for the street."
Roger Norton, co-owner of The Dry Dock cafe, expects the overhead lanterns to create a dramatic effect at night, and he believes the dining precinct will benefit the whole CBD.
"It will be a great thing for Tauranga central. We need something like it to attract people here."
He is also pleased with the timing coinciding with the installation of a series of bronze Hairy Maclary sculptures on the waterfront next month.
Josh Fitzgerald, co-owner of Rye American Kitchen, says the precinct timing is also great for his business, which opened in November.
Curry Hut owner Sunil Kumar is another looking forward to the launch.
He helped initiate the precinct idea after seeing it work well on Rotorua's Eat Street, where he previously ran a business.
