Tauranga CBD brainstorming begins

REVAMP: The project aims to rethink Tauranga's civic precinct to attract more businesses and people to the area. PHOTO/JOHN BORREN

A once-in-a-generation civic revamp of Tauranga's struggling downtown begins today with a series of brainstorming workshops.

The project will determine the best option to redevelop the civic precinct, including the council-owned carparks opposite Baycourt.

About 100 people, many of them from the business sector, will participate in three workshops to generate feedback that will culminate in the council consulting with the public mid-November.

Today's workshops are the first phase of the Civic Space Options project, launched by the council after the discovery of black mould in parts of the civic block last year. It led to the relocation of hundreds of staff to temporary offices elsewhere in the downtown.

"It is potentially one of the largest projects that council will deliver in the CBD in our generation," Mayor Stuart Crosby said.

Driving the project was the realisation that the failure to accelerate cultural, commercial and inner-city residential development had compromised the ability to exploit growth opportunities.

The council will also assess how the project could be a catalyst for other opportunities. "We cannot limit our thinking to staff accommodation needs or we will under-deliver to the city," he said.

Most of the 50 people who submitted on the civic block in the 10-year plan budget process earlier this year sought broader opportunities than just making the buildings habitable again for staff.

Mr Crosby said they were starting with a clean sheet of paper.

The council had allocated $30 million in the 10-year plan for downtown carparking and they were not sure yet where that would land. The council also budgeted to spend $4 million over the next five years to improve streetscapes fronting major downtown investments, such as Trustpower's head office and the planned new university campus and hotel in Durham St.

The Civic Space Options project would also look at leveraging more investment in the downtown, with council chief executive Garry Poole saying one option could be for the council to go down the same path as central government agencies which now leased buildings rather than owned them.

Part of the process would involve talking to other parties that had accommodation needs, such as government agencies. "We could end up with a government centre - that is an indication of our breadth of thinking."

Mr Poole said there had been some loss of productivity since staff were relocated out of the civic centre and the council's thinking was that they would be brought back again under one roof.

Mr Crosby said the council was keeping an open mind about the future of the civic block, and community engagement would help refine the scope of the project. "The journey is under way."

Underpinning the project was the realisation that a lack of cohesion and poor amenities in the city centre was reducing Tauranga's ability to attract businesses and increase foot traffic.