Town hall to form centre of scattered Super City

The office of the Super City's mayor will be based at the Auckland Town Hall. Photo / The Aucklander

Click here for the 'Idiot's guide to the Super City' to see how the new Auckland Council will work.

The Auckland Town Hall, built in 1911, will become the anchor of the new Super City forged from eight local authorities scattered from Pukekohe to Wellsford.

In choosing key places of business for the new Auckland Council, the agency charged with its design says it has aimed to preserve the location of operations staff while centralising support staff where possible.

The mayoral office will be based at the town hall and from November 1, the new council's head office will be across Aotea Square in the Civic Administration Building.

Main customer service centres will be in the Waitakere Civic Building in Henderson, the North Shore City Council building in Takapuna and the Manukau Civic Centre. Each centre will house 450 staff.

Takapuna will become the base for policy and planning, Manukau for information technology services and Henderson the base of the new transport council-controlled organisation.

Secondary customer services centres will be at the Rodney District Council office in Orewa, Papakura District Council office and Franklin District Council in Pukekohe.

The new council has been spoiled for choice with new or refurbished accommodation.

Last year, a $21.35 million refurbishment was done at Manukau Civic Centre, and Auckland City's civic building also had $3 million spent on recladding and safety.

North Shore City has a 12-year lease of a $20 million four-level annex.

In January, 700 staff moved in from three buildings to be under one roof.

Council chief executive John Brockies said yesterday it was planned to sublease the office space in the annex once it was known how much was needed for its Super City role.

Waitakere City Council has 13,400sq m of space in its "Waitakere Central" at Henderson, completed at a cost of $39 million.

Rodney District Council opened a $13 million extension to its Orewa office two years ago.

The location decision also abandons the Pitt St headquarters of the Auckland Regional Council, whose functions are being absorbed into the new council.

The council built it in the late 1980s for $70 million but it ended up costing more than $200 million because debentures were tied to a high fixed rate of interest.

The ARC no longer owns it, but leases two floors.