Is Auckland's 'urban village' ideal straying off course?

The row of heritage buildings on Quay St will be interrupted by a high rise. Photo / Steven McNicholl

How you see the restoration of a collection of century-old buildings on Auckland's downtown waterfront is a matter of perspective.

From one angle, the Britomart heritage precinct is the best thing to happen on the waterfront in a generation or three - cocking a snook at property hard-heads who argued that the 18 largely derelict buildings were beyond a bankable future.

From another, it is a public-private partnership where the balance appears to be tilting towards the developer; where the promised "people-friendly" benefits of this urban revitalisation are crumbling.

It is six years since the Auckland City Council handed the buildings - spanning three city blocks between the old Chief Post Office and Britomart Place - to a property consortium on a long-term lease, with a 10-year redevelopment timeframe.

Bluewater, teaming expat property mogul Peter Cooper with local refurbishment experts Ross and Ken Healy, promised to give the seedy area surrounding the old city bus depot a vibrant future, building on the CPO's sympathetic conversion into a railway terminal.

In look and scale, something like the Vulcan Lane-High St-O'Connell St precinct was the promise.

As one who campaigned against the 1990s council's fixation with businessman Jihong Lu's "Gotham City" high-rise fantasy, I thought it was the best possible outcome for the vast 5.3ha site.

Instead of being bowled, the heritage buildings - warehouses and port-related buildings dating from 1885 - would become shops, offices and accommodation.

The half-dozen new buildings allowed would be designed in sympathy with their neighbours. Newcomers around the perimeter would be low-rise; those within the square medium-rise so as not to dominate.

While privately-owned towers such as Union House on Quay St and the Mercure on Customs St meant it could never become a perfect square, we were promised an "urban village" with a mix of activities appealing to locals and tourists in a (largely) character setting.

In a city with a sorry track record for retaining its built heritage, the Britomart deal was a watershed.

All that was needed was for the developers to keep their word and the council to stick to its guns. From a heritage viewpoint, that's pretty much what's happened.

The construction site image is fading as new buildings Westpac Charter House and the East building near completion, bars and restaurants open and retail and office tenancies are taken up.

Property market turmoil and recession have caused slippage in the timetable and changes to the planned tenancy mix, with apartments converted to offices. The partnership with the Healy brothers dissolved, leaving Cooper and Co with all but the Old Wharf Police Station.

The problem of where to put buses after the demolition of the bus depot has never been solved. Instead, streets are lined with bus shelters and rows of buses at peak hour, which detract from any sense of atmosphere and are a physical and visual barrier for retailers and bars.

Yet some terrific outcomes have been achieved. Working with the council and Historic Places Trust, the developers have shown patience and commitment to detail in restoring many of the old buildings' original features.

The character settings have attracted fashion houses, homeware stores and a gallery to ground-floor spaces along Customs St. Ad agencies, designers and lawyers are taking up upper levels.

On a Heritage Festival guided walk around the precinct last week, council heritage specialist Ian Grant talked enthusiastically about what's been achieved - from structural and disabled access challenges to the faithful recreation of entrance-ways, windows and parapets based on historic drawings or photographs.

We inspected the Levy Building and admired the replica stained glass windows, the old Chief Post Office entrance with its mosaic tiled floor, the replica parapets on the Union Fish building.

While the council prepared detailed conservation plans, it has been flexible about the building code and conscious that tenancies must be viable.

Bars and restaurants have showcased the restorations and brought people into the precinct. Takutai Lane off Customs St replicates a Melbourne laneway atmosphere and its two bars - Racket and Agents & Merchants - are hugely popular (so much so that the lane sometimes seems more a private than public alleyway).

Colonnade treatments on new buildings Westpac Charter House on Customs St and the East building nearing completion on Britomart Pl, blend satisfactorily with their century-old neighbours. When the East building opens in mid-2011, tenants Westpac, Ernst & Young and Southern Cross will bring 2000 office workers to the precinct, on top of the 650 in Westpac's adjoining call centre.

The developers talk of Britomart as giving the city a much-needed heart. But what about soul? From an urban design and public amenity viewpoint, there are signs that Britomart is veering off track.

The immediate flashpoint is the private plan change allowing the developers to build a high rise luxury hotel on the sailors' home/Schooner Tavern site on Quay St.

That decision has split architectural and urban design critics, some maintaining that new high rise can be successfully blended with low-rise heritage buildings. If so, it will be a first for Auckland.

City development manager John Duthie says the 55m tower will simply meld into the surrounding backdrop of CBD buildings and will have strict design controls.

The developers say the existing 24m height limit made development of the site unfeasible and hopes for a hotel to help "activate" the precinct hinged on getting more floorspace.

The problem is that the seafarers' site is in the middle of a row of two to five-storey character buildings along the waterfront, from the Old Wharf Police Station to the Northern Steamship Co building. Replacing the sailors' hostel brought an opportunity to improve this continuity and signify Britomart as a heritage precinct.

A new high-rise building will achieve the opposite, breaking up the row and extending the high and low-rise pattern of the wider CBD. From some angles, such as Queens Wharf, the long-mooted waterfront promenade and Takutai Square within the precinct, it will be prominent.

This is the second major departure the developers have obtained. Last November, rules were varied for redevelopment of the Oriental Markets site on Quay St, which Cooper and Co bought subsequent to the Britomart deal. What was to be a cinema and carpark behind street-front apartments became a bigger carpark with a gymnasium.

While a carpark on such a prominent site has dismayed many, it negated the need to provide carparking levels within Westpac's new building - good for the developers and, some maintain, the precinct overall.

In urban design and architectural circles there's suspicion the substantial rewrite of the Britomart plan may lead to further departures.

There's also no guarantee that the high-rise will be a hotel at all. Cooper and Co chief executive Matthew Cockram says the hotel market is "very tough" and a decision may be three years away. And the developers have yet to persuade the Seafarers Mission to give up their long-term lease.

Another angle vexing some observers is the financial one. In 2004, the developers paid $32 million for development rights to the 5.6ha site - the knockdown price acknowledging the restoration challenges and the height limits on new building sites.

Now that the developers have gained a high-rise with extra floorspace, some argue there should be an adjustment in favour of ratepayers.

IN IMAGINING how Britomart will end up, part of the problem is the project's long gestation. People took different things from the many plans that came and went - Britomart would be a bohemian mecca, a piazza in Rome and a Parisian shopping quarter all at once. It was also charged with reviving downtown retail. We may have forgotten that it was a commercial development.

My expectations were for a grungy restoration of the buildings with rents to match, with loft spaces for creative types and character apartments. I'd assumed the central square created by the removal of the bus terminal would remain public space - it seemed ideal for a produce market, with bars and cafes around the edges.

As such, I'd wondered why the developers hadn't opened up the rear of more buildings to improve access. Turns out the middle of the square - now a rudimentary carpark - was always destined to be an office block.

The depressed market has merely delayed its construction. The new Central building will be of similar proportions to the East building - with a covered walkway and atrium through the middle.

But the four-square building will block views and hinder connectivity between the Quay St and Customs St heritage buildings.

The developers currently hope to fill ground-level shops in the Central building with luxury brand retailers such as Chanel. Exclusive boutiques may suit guests of the "5 plus-star" hotel, but will they draw in low-wage Aucklanders? The risk is that the precinct will become an elitist place.

1885, the new bar which opens into the square from Stanbeth House, similarly targets upmarket patrons, although drinks are at standard city prices.

Yet another bar is on the horizon, this time a rooftop affair with harbour views. The new food and beverage outlets all have their niches and add diversity to the city pub scene - but when to say when?

Achieving the elusive mix of activities has undoubtedly been hampered by market conditions. Plans for a boutique hotel and/or serviced apartments in the Barrington Building and Old Sofrana House came and went.

Planned apartments in Excelsior and Stanbeth House are being converted to office space - Cockram thinks more apartments may be "a generation away". Hopes to have the Central Building up for the Rugby World Cup were dashed.

The developers and council are also working up plans to enlarge Takutai Square, the public space between the Central and East buildings, by narrowing through-roads to make them "shared spaces".

Duthie says the square will be a place to "meet friends, have lunch and chat" and will continue to host events such as movie screenings and music festivals (though, sadly, not Laneways). The adjoining East building arcade will include moderately-priced lunch bars.

Cockram says the developers are conscious of getting the tenancy mix right. "These things are a bit generational - you don't necessarily get the optimum first time around." While food and beverage outlets are bringing people in now, that may change in future, he says. The firm is taking a long-term view.

If the Central building is so hard to fill, why not look at less intensive development of the carpark site? A covered produce market, performance stage and larger public square would surely do more for the precinct as a people place than another office building. It would maintain open space and views of the character buildings and connection with the harbour.

Ratepayers may have to compensate the developers but "the people" would have their place. Then again, the extra floorspace granted for the hotel could form part of the compensation.