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An 86-year-old cottage outside Auckland University's medical school in Grafton is about to be demolished for a $43 million bus corridor between Britomart and Newmarket.
Auckland City Council acknowledges that Sparling Cottage, on a corner of Park Rd opposite the main public hospital, has heritage value because its masonic construction with roughcast plaster over timber framing was unusual when it was built in 1922.
But council project manager for the "Central Connector" bus corridor, Graham Long, said it scored 42 points in a heritage assessment under which it would have needed 50 points to merit protection.
He said yesterday the university did not want to conserve the building, and it would be too expensive and risky to move, so the council had a consent to demolish it for a new road alignment and footpath.
That work is expected to start at the end of next week.
Fifty-five parking spaces outside the university's main campus in Symonds St will also be removed over Easter, and two ailing trees nearby chopped down next week, ready for contractor Fulton Hogan to begin the main project next month.
Mr Long said the oak tree outside the university's engineering school and a plane tree further down Symonds St were so ill that they were unsafe for passers-by. They would be replaced with healthy trees, and the rest of an avenue of protected plane trees outside the university would be kept.
But 18 pohutukawa trees in Anzac Ave, and 21 assorted trees in Park Rd would be removed for road-widening and replaced by larger numbers further back from the project's bus and cycle lanes.
A 17m "prototype" bus-stop canopy will also be installed during the Easter break across Park Rd from the condemned cottage, part of what will be a 45m structure to give better shelter and a larger waiting area for the 65,000 daily passengers expected to use the busway when it opens in 2010.
Mr Long said people would eventually be able to walk under cover across Grafton Bridge from Symonds St and all the way to the main pedestrian crossing outside the hospital.
The overall project, in which buses will have 24-hour dedicated lanes for much of the way between Britomart and Newmarket, is aimed at chopping up to 14 minutes off trips, which can take half an hour at peak times.
It will link the Northern Busway to future bus priority projects.
