Demolition work heralds start of Britomart project

By BERNARD ORSMAN

Work has started on the $194 million Britomart transport project with the demolition of the art deco annex behind the old Chief Post Office.

The reinforced concrete annex was built by the Public Works Department in 1937 and for nearly 60 years it was the sorting depot for millions of letters and provided work to generations of students.

Now it is coming down as the first step in an ambitious timetable to complete the downtown transport centre by February 2003.

Alex Burrell, of Burrell Demolition, said yesterday that the $500,000 job of pulling down the annex would take about seven weeks and most of the materials, including the concrete and steel reinforcing, would be recycled.

The decaying 91-year-old Chief Post Office, with its facade of Oamaru stone and Coromandel granite, will be restored and become the hub for the long-awaited transport centre at the foot of Queen St.

The next job will be the demolition of the Britomart carpark in June at a cost of $1 million.

This will get the site ready for the main contract to start in August with a completion date of February 2003.

Before work can start, Auckland City councillors must get a finance package in place.

The council has changed how it plans to pay for Britomart. It had planned to borrow $132 million and apply to Infrastructure Auckland and Transfund for $40 million. It has already written off $22 million from the original scheme.

Finance director David Rankin said the council was now going to Infrastructure Auckland for $91.5 million and to Transfund for $25 million for funding towards the transport costs of the Queen St railway station and bus interchange. The council contribution would be $55.5 million.

Mr Rankin said the $172 million cost of the project was a "rough estimate" and the council had been working on detailed costings and a cost-benefit analysis since deciding to proceed with the project in November.

He said it was too early to say if the project would cost more, less or about the same, but he expected the figure to be ready for the next meeting of the council's Waitemata Waterfront Development working party on March 21.