Tavern's move is one-way only

Richard Reid's proposal for the Victoria Park tunnel project.

Promises by the Transport Agency to restore Victoria Park and the Birdcage Tavern after completing the $430 million tunnel do not extend to returning the 123-year-old watering hole to its existing site.

The agency hopes to be left with plenty of change from an allocation of $8 million to $10 million for moving the two-storey brick building, on rollers, about 30m up Franklin Rd.

Although it will have to leave the basement and building annexes to be demolished by the tunnellers, it intends restoring the above-ground levels for future public amenity, in line with its resource consents and a Historic Places Trust designation.

But architect Richard Reid, who helped to make the design of the new Mt Roskill motorway extension more acceptable to the Auckland Volcanic Cones Society, says the hotel deserves pride of place in an economically enhancing urban renewal project centred on Victoria Park rather than being tucked away behind the tunnel's southern portal.

He says he has been assured by a structural engineering expert that the strengthening required to move the building in one direction will equally protect it for a return to its existing position, which would require the portal to be extended by only five metres.

"We have the means to transform that place, which will enhance the heritage value of the hotel and produce an outstanding urban space."

But senior agency official Tommy Parker rejected the plan last night, saying it would increase both the structural risk to the building and the downhill gradient for northbound traffic entering the tunnel.