New owner Mike Mooney (left) with artist Jack "Drifty" Marsden-Mayer and photographer Lewis Gardner. Photo / Bevan Conley
New owner Mike Mooney (left) with artist Jack "Drifty" Marsden-Mayer and photographer Lewis Gardner. Photo / Bevan Conley
The old wool store on Whanganui's Bedford Ave has a new owner and he is happy to preserve the building's century-old charms.
Elite Engineering owner Mike Mooney said his fondness for the building's exterior was enough to make him put in his offer without needing to assess the interior.
"I'vealways loved the building and when I saw it for sale I thought I should buy it so it wouldn't get bowled by someone else," Mooney said.
"It needs a lot of strengthening work and, as an engineer, I can do the work in stages."
Mooney said his first priority would be to make the building watertight and replace the copper rain head spouting and the internal spouting. The brickwork, though, was in remarkably good shape.
There was some anxiety for artists working out of the building when it went on the market in February.
It was particularly concerning to artist Jack Marsden-Mayer who creates his sought-after driftwood sculptures in the building. He has been a tenant there for eight years and amassed a vast collection of carefully selected pieces of sea-worn timber.
"I really hoped the new owner would be someone who wanted to preserve the building and keep it tenanted," he said.
"I was worried that a new owner would want to demolish the building and I would have to offer my collection as free firewood."
Artist Jack Marsden-Mayer with a recently completed moa and his driftwood stash in the Bedford Ave building.
Photo / Bevan Conley
Marsden-Mayer is about to commence work on a whale sculpture commission. It will be the fifth one he made since he's been at Bedford Ave, along with a host of creatures great and small.
He's one of many artists to have inhabited the building purchased by Whanganui potter Ross Mitchell-Anyon in 1996. It was the first of a number of Whanganui heritage buildings Mitchell-Anyon bought with the dual purpose of preserving them while providing affordable spaces for local artists.
Mitchell-Anyon, who received the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to the arts in the 2022 New Year Honours, was seriously injured in a 12m fall from a ladder in 2015.
Another long-term tenant in the building is photographer Lewis Gardner who installed his cyclorama in the building five years ago.
The large curved white backdrop with a roof that diffuses light would not fit comfortably into many buildings so Gardner, like Marsden-Mayer, has reason to celebrate the new owner's plans to preserve the building.
"I moved it here from Auckland and it's the second biggest cyclorama in New Zealand," he said.
"I would have trouble finding another building big enough to house it."
Many artists have shared the space for more than 26 years and it has also served as storage space for vehicles and furniture.
Mooney said he would fit the strengthening work around the tenants' activities at the outset.
He was awaiting a seismic assessment report on the building but said it had withstood quite a few sizeable earthquakes in its 102 years and he was confident it would stand for a lot longer.
"It will be a long-term project that I'm going to really enjoy," he said.
