'Attractive' plan for cottages site

An artist's impression of the planned retail, office and residential complex to be built in Turua St, St Heliers. Photo / Supplied

The replacement building for the St Heliers cottages is the first of a three-stage development which includes both sides of Turua St and the New Zealand Post building in the heart of the shopping centre.

Ancona Properties has resource consent for a retail, office and four-apartment building on the eastern side of Turua St and demolition of the six houses that were the subject of an Environment Court decision on Thursday.

Developer Mike Markham said yesterday that there would be no rethink or compromise over the design, following the uproar over the cottages' destruction.

However, he promised public consultation on the design and scale when resource consent was applied for stage two and three of what he called a "comprehensive and attractive development of the village".

These later stages would be on Ancona's properties across the road from the former cottages site.

Both facing sites would be developed to provide a continuous sheltered retail complex on both sides of the street.

Ancona's holdings on the west side include the New Zealand Post building in St Heliers Bay Rd in the heart of the shopping centre.

This would be refurbished and connected by a lane to a large public courtyard area surrounded by new shops and cafes on the ground floor of a three-storey commercial complex.

The lane would carry on to Turua St.

Mr Markham said plans for the later stages were still being finalised and would be clearly explained with computer graphics.

The Turua St East development is designed by Cook Sargisson & Pirie Architects. Co-owner Marshall Cook said the Turua St building would have a 50m frontage and would have a domestic scale and a mix of materials and colours.

"It is not a bold and brassy building,"said Mr Cook.

Save Our St Heliers Society spokeswoman Dorothy McHattie was not impressed, saying Turua St was "now destroyed and turned into chillybins" after the court rejected its protest over the Turua St cottages.

Businessman Barry Colman, who financed the legal challenge, said the new building was a "three-storey concrete and glass affair running the length of the street and ruining the character of St Heliers.