Handsome repository of city's history for sale

While the building has been modernised, its Edwardian / Baroque exterior remains faithful to its original design. Photo / Bruce Clarke

For years an exhibition space for Auckland Art Gallery, the New Gallery building faces a new era.

A well-known Auckland CBD heritage building, which originally housed the city's first telephone exchange and more recently hosted a contemporary art gallery, on the corner of Wellesley St and Lorne St, is up for sale.

The 3060sq m former New Gallery building occupies a 1032sq m site, also fronting on to Khartoum Place. The 95-year-old largely vacant property is for sale by tender, closing on July 5, through Nigel McNeill and Colin McKenna of Bayleys Auckland.

Originally occupied by the Wellesley St post office and telephone exchange, the building was bought in 1992 by Auckland Contemporary Art Trust. It was extensively refurbished and modernised inside under the direction of Mitchell & Stout Architects and has subsequently hosted numerous art exhibitions, including many on behalf of nearby Auckland Art Gallery.

Dame Jenny Gibbs, who chairs the trust, says because the Art Gallery had limited exhibition space, the New Gallery building was made available to it for exhibition purposes, with proceeds from commercial rentals also distributed to the art gallery.

"Now that the Auckland Art Gallery has been extensively restored and expanded, with over 50 per cent more exhibition space, it no longer has a need for the New Gallery facility," she says. "The trustees have therefore decided to sell the building, with the proceeds to be donated towards the trust's stated purpose of fostering contemporary art."

The three-level plus basement building was designed by government architect John Campbell in an Edwardian and Baroque style and the first section was completed in 1916 to house a post office and telephone exchange. An extension completed in 1927, required to hold the rapidly expanding telephone exchange, doubled the building's size. In the days before automatic telephone exchanges, many operators were employed in the building.

In 1951, the Wellesley St post office was moved to Civic Square where it remains in the Bledisloe Building, and the entire building became the Central Auckland Telephone Exchange.

McNeill says the ornate exterior of the building is largely as it was designed originally, apart from the addition of balconies, entrances and glazing. It has an Historic Places Trust Category 2 classification.

"It's also a striking building inside with a mixture of timber and exposed concrete finishing and has been renovated and maintained to a high standard by the trust, with modern building services including an escalator to the upper two levels, large lift, computer wiring, cart dock and sprinklers.

"The largely open space interior very much offers a blank canvas to a new owner and numerous future options given the property's flexible CBD zoning. It could obviously continue to be used as an exhibition and arts complex, or it could be converted for office use on the upper levels and retail at ground level.

"It also has residential conversion potential or could appeal to recreation or education owner occupiers."

McKenna says the building currently has cafe and book store tenancies on short-term leases that provide holding income and there is around 135sq m of ground floor space complete with a commercial kitchen.

"It's on a very high profile corner site, one block back from Queen St, and is exposed to a high volume of passing traffic to and from the university. There are also some residential apartment buildings nearby."