Britomart revisited

The public have had their chance to design a scheme for the Britomart area. Auckland City Council reporter BERNARD ORSMAN looks at the limits of the new project.

The first designs for the Britomart area of Auckland will emerge next Friday when a public competition closes.

The 300 or so entrants have a wide brief but only an A1 sheet of paper to put a thumbnail sketch on what to build from the rubble of the original, aborted scheme.

Proposals must take into account a railway station at the foot of Queen St, bus, ferry and rapid transport options, and sprucing up the dilapidated Britomart precinct with its collection of historic buildings.

The new Britomart project, which the Auckland City Council has renamed the Waitemata Waterfront Development for obvious reasons, is essentially smaller in scale and scope than the grandiose redevelopment envisaged by the previous council and development company, Savoy Equities.

To recap, that project was to go ahead in two stages. Stage one was for a $376 million five-level underground transport development, including 2900 carparks, 11 above-ground foundation pods, retail shops, and a train and bus station that would have cost the council $164 million.

Stage two, which offered the highest profit margin for Savoy Equities, was the construction of a mix of high-rise commercial office, apartment and hotel buildings.

All up, the Britomart project, at a cost of $1.5 billion, was to have been the biggest commercial development in New Zealand's history.

Its ultimate collapse was as much political as commercial. The previous council under Mayor Les Mills showed an arrogant disregard for process and the concerns of Aucklanders, who vented their anger at the ballot box.

It was a tough year for new councillors voted in on a "Rethink Britomart" platform. They were repeatedly warned of the need to act in "good faith" and the dire legal consequences of putting a foot wrong.

To their credit, in a show of discipline and nerve, the council stared down Savoy to the point where it had legal grounds to tear up the Britomart contract in November.

Savoy has threatened the council with a $100 million-plus lawsuit for costs and compensation for loss of profits but has yet to file any action in the courts.

Having ditched the project, the council was back to square one. Apart from a commitment to involve the public in a new scheme and to focus on a dedicated transport terminal there was no alternative plan in the bottom drawer.

What then is known about the new Waitemata Waterfront Development, dubbed the "son of Britomart?"

Quite a lot, and very little. The new scheme is smaller, dedicated to public transport and the Queen St Railway Station can only be built underground to connect with the $15.6 million tunnel under private land next door to the Britomart site.

The undergrounding of Quay St is no longer taking place and the environmental opportunity that created to build a holding tank for stormwater solids is gone. Instead, the water will be discharged beside Captain Cook Wharf.

Buses will no longer be underground to the relief of bus owners who had argued it would be impractical, uncomfortable and unattractive for commuters.

There will be no retail development underground and, above ground, the council will limit itself to landscaping and restoring some of the old buildings lining Customs St, Britomart Place, Quay St and the old Chief Post Office - the likely base for a central railway station.

Or maybe not. The reason Britomart was floated in the first place - to bring rail back into downtown Auckland for the first time in 70 years - has recently been challenged by a bizarre proposal to stop trains at the end of the existing Auckland Railway Station in The Strand.

From there a rapid transit system - such as light rail or guided buses - would go to a smaller above-ground transport interchange at Britomart, and on up Queen St, to the university, Auckland Hospital and the western rail line near Khyber Pass Rd.

Handing over the underground tunnel to rapid rail - which could easily run above ground - would wipe out the chance of heavy rail ever coming back to Queen St.

Needless to say, Tranz Rail is not keen on the possibility of losing tunnel access to Queen St where a reconfigured design of the platforms has helped to make the underground box smaller and cheaper to build.

As well as getting the first picture next week of what shape the new project could take, councillors will be briefed on new costings.

The project manager for the Waitemata Waterfront Development Group, Mark Kunath, has reportedly told councillors that public transport costs associated with the slimmed-down box have dropped from $120 to $60 million.

That would see the cost of the new scheme cut back to $158 million, marginally lower than $164 million for the original. When $22 million in written-off costs from the original scheme and $15.6 million to build the tunnel are added, the overall cost is creeping towards $200 million.

Provisionally, $17 million has been set aside to restore some of the 20 slowly decaying historic buildings, including the old Chief Post Office. Other costs are $22 million for an above-ground bus terminal, $27 million for public spaces to "extend the Viaduct Harbour success story" and $16 million for relocation of services.

The council has $129 million set aside for a downtown transport terminal. The shortfall will be met by selling other properties in the 3.5ha Britomart block and applications to Infrastructure Auckland and Transfund.