KEY POINTS:
One of the last vestiges of religion in downtown Auckland, the Methodist Chapel opposite the town hall, looks set to be demolished and replaced in a multimillion-dollar redevelopment of the prime city site.
The chapel, the adjoining Airedale St soup kitchen, the cross-topped office block on the corner of Queen St and Wakefield St and a next-door office block at 3 Wakefield St are being sold as a package for long-term lease, with a combined valuation of more than $25 million.
The Methodist Mission Northern will keep ownership of the land underneath what is expected to be a new high-rise block with a maximum height of 22 storeys.
Mission Superintendent John Murray said the buyer would be required to provide a chapel somewhere in the new block, incorporating the stained glass window which now faces Queen St.
But it would not necessarily stay in its current building, which opened in 1964.
"Some of the relocation options give the chapel a better look than what it's got now. It sits at rather a funny angle to Queen St and isn't actually easy to find your way into," he said.
"The expectation is that it must be readily accessible."
He said the soup kitchen and community centre, now behind the chapel in Airedale St, would be relocated somewhere else in the inner city, probably in rented space.
Proceeds from the sale of the lease would also allow the mission to start or re-start new services such as Te Manawa O Hine, a Pitt St centre which provided life skills and literacy courses for women until it was closed for financial reasons in 2005.
Mr Murray said the mission's board gave the issue "heart-searching" thought before deciding to sell the lease on land, the core of which was originally gifted to the church by Governor George Grey in 1851.
"The property earns income that we invest in our services," he said.
"But to bring the buildings into the 21st century is beyond our financial ability.
"They are in need of major refurbishment or servicing, but in actual fact the buildings no longer have what they call a popular 'plate' size. Each floor is too small.
"They [commercial tenants] are looking at bigger plate sizes.
"That is what we achieve by putting all this together."
The mission followed the same model of selling its buildings and operations while keeping ownership of the land underneath them when it sold its three retirement villages in Mt Eden, Mt Albert and Pukekohe to Eldercare in 2005.
A representative of the homeless on the Auckland City Mission's welfare committee, Lewis Midwood, said the homeless would not mind where they went for food as long as it was within walking distance.
"Just as long as they keep feeding us, that's the main thing," he said.
But a younger homeless man who has been eating at Airedale St for the past six years, Jackson, said: "It's going to be a bit of a loss."
