Brian Rudman: St James first, then the fancy paving

Auckland City's dream of shared public spaces in which cars and pedestrians mingle in peace and harmony, conjures up the biblical idyll of lions and lambs gambolling together.

If nothing else, it will be good sport for the young and the litigious. What is of more concern about the latest $11 million "shared space" project, this one around the central library in Lorne St, is the timing.

Why would politicians and bureaucrats risk so much ratepayers' cash redeveloping a streetscape infrastructure that abuts the vast St James Theatre redevelopment site?

To start the job before the future of the St James is settled is like laying the parquet entrance floor of a large apartment tower, then building 20 floors above it, hoping the wooden surface won't get scratched.

It's the same cavalier thinking that mars the Queens Wharf plans. That it's all right to spend $20 million of public money on a temporary Rugby World Cup party venue, then afterwards go back to square one and design a permanent solution for the wharf which may or may not include the rugby infrastructure.

The council has a department dedicated to trying to avoid such waste. For instance, when a major upgrade like the Queen St footpath rebuild is planned, the system kicks in and big utility companies are asked to co-ordinate any underground work they have planned.

Of course, no such voluntary system is perfect.

In 2005, for example, the city's $7 million upgrade of Quay St came to a halt after power lines company Vector decided it had to tunnel through some of the completed new paving.

The St James situation is more complicated in that there is no development timetable.

The only certainties are that last April, the owners of the block stretching from Queen St to Lorne St won a six-year fight for permission to build a 39-storey apartment tower.

The adjacent 1928 vintage theatre, also owned by the developer, Paul Doole, has to be sealed watertight and mothballed. Limited preservation work will include some earthquake proofing and restoration of the original Queen St tower that has been hidden behind a facade since 1953.

The theatre has the Historic Places Trust and Auckland City's highest level of heritage protection. But that only means the owner can't immediately knock it down. It doesn't require an owner to do any restoration work.

With the latest downturn in the property cycle, the future of the site, and the theatre - deemed too unsafe for public use in its present state - is in limbo.

The council landscape bureaucrats seem so obsessed with pursuing their "shared space" adventure that they're blocking their eyes to this huge obstacle in their midst. Indeed, instead of seeing it as a building site or an old theatre, they prefer to see it as a wall.

The publicity says: "The St James facade could be utilised as a giant surface upon which to project images. The creative use of this space could include open-air cinema, poetry, text and artwork projection".

Surely the creative use of this space is to open it up and use it as a theatre again. Using its bleak and neglected rear wall as a place to project images is to admit defeat. The landscapers think that laying new paving and sharing it with cars will suddenly make it a vibrant people-place.

The way to do that is to restore the old theatre as an integral party of the central city arts facilities.

Among the ideas discussed for the theatre is refocusing it on to Lorne St. There is agreement that backstage facilities, which are adjacent to Lorne St, need expanding. It's possible that upgrading the St James into the modern lyric theatre the city so needs will require expansion into the existing roadway. These possibilities should not be limited by a rushed $11 million paving project.

Another reason for holding fire is that the proposed 332-apartment block has underground parking for tenants' cars, presumably accessed from Lorne St. These cars will join those using the ASB Bank's existing Lorne St car park building. All those cars coming and going are hardly going to enhance the pedestrian experience.

But primarily, the priority here is to save and revive the St James Theatre. Only then can we decide how best to create the interface between it, the public library and the wider Aotea Precinct.