Rudman's city: Heritage police train sights on CPO

By BRIAN RUDMAN

Just when the battles over the Britomart transport interchange seemed over, the Auckland City Council has bought itself another one. This time it's with the Historic Places Trust over the future of the long-abandoned, 90-year-old Chief Post Office.

Last Thursday, amid the euphoria of approving the new, $194 million scheme, councillors nodded through a recommendation that the old and much-protected CPO be as good as gutted and converted into the vestibule of a grand new train station, serving both heavy and light rail.

This icon-busting proposal has light-rail tracks being punched through the back of the building, running past street-level platforms inside, then emerging out the front of the building through existing arches, on to Queen Elizabeth Square.

To me, it's the common-sense solution.

Throughout the long debate over the siting of the downtown passenger transport interchange, we've tended to pussy-foot around the obvious. That the old CPO is in the way.

Until now, the generally accepted solution has been to take the light rail around the outside of the CPO, picking up passengers in Queen Elizabeth Square.

This is the answer adopted by the prize-winning Madayag-Jasmax concept announced just before last week's council meeting.

But to the judging panel, headed by Professor John Hunt, this was not the best solution.

As they pored over the finalists' entries, they kept coming back to the solution proposed in the first-round entry of Andrew Patterson Architects. It involved putting light rail through the CPO.

Patterson's abandoned the idea in their final-round entry, but the more the judges debated it, the more they liked the answer.

As a result, the judges recommended to the council that to "ensure the fullest possible role for the CPO building" as a "vestibule" for the city and the station, "sensitive changes" would have to be made "to its architectural fabric in order to enhance greater public accessibility and use."

These pretty words were enough to sway councillors last Thursday, but they did nothing to calm Historic Places Trust officials.

When I spoke to them, soon after they heard of the plans, they were still busy with their smelling salts.

Hopefully, in time, they will come to appreciate the judging panel's case. Putting light and heavy rail passengers under one roof is user-friendly. Light rail will be at ground level, heavy rail on the floor below.

The Madayag-Jasmax concept includes a subway to the adjacent ferry terminal. Meanwhile, bus passengers would be close by in adjacent streets. Employing the CPO as the transport hub would also give the decaying old pile a purpose in life it has sadly lacked for many years.

In so doing, it would bring to the new interchange a touch of the grandeur that train stations of the early 20th century routinely had.

And, if we are honest, the economic future for the CPO as a historic relic is not exactly rosy.

The big obstacle to all this is the building's heritage status. Without the blessing of the Historic Places Trust, the proposal is as good as dead.

The trust's trump card is the heritage covenant New Zealand Post signed with it in September 1995 before selling the CPO to Auckland City.

This bound all subsequent owners not to "damage, demolish or permit the damage or demolition of the primary features, including the facade ... "

It bound said owners to devote their "best endeavours" to "protect, conserve and maintain" the said primary features.

These primary features were specifically listed and include several that Professor Hunt's plan would obliterate.

A key feature of the Hunt plan is to lower the CPO floor and the entranceways to street level to aid pedestrian flow.

This would mean the destruction of several "primary features," including the steep entrance steps and various fancy internal floorings.

The plan also calls for the raising of the ceiling to add to the sense of space. This would disturb yet more primary features.

I can't help feeling, but so what? This is a way of giving the old place new life as a civic building. For that, the price of doing away with some unfriendly steps, some mosaic flooring (which no doubt can be relocated) and the like seems worth it.

Here's hoping the heritage police take a similarly pragmatic view.

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