NEW DEFENCE BUILDING

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 14, 11 October 1918, Page 6

NEW DEFENCE BUILDING

WHiniORE STREET TO BE CLOSED.

In connection with the amalgamation of tho Base Records and War Expenses branches of the. Defence Department, a new building is to be erected in Whitmoro Struct tfor that purpose. This will mean the utilisation of the street space between the Lambton Quay Police Courts and the grounds of the Government Buildings, and, necessarily, the closing up, for ;,U time, of that portion of Whitmore Street between the northern terminal of Stout Street and Lambton Quay. This , scheme is the outcome of an arrangement made between Mr. ' Justice Herdman (when Minister of Justice) and the city corporation some five years ago. at which timp the new' railway station (to have been erected in Bunny Street) was much in the public eye. The city's quid pro quo is to he the continuation of Stout Street (which debouches from Lambton Quay between the Public Trust Office and the Hotel Arcadia), through the rear grounds of the Government Buildings, until it emerges at the junction of Featherston Street and Bunny Street, thus affording a straight thoroughfare 'from, the new station to a central point on Lnmbtmi Quay. Another point in tho original agreement was that the island triangle in the south-eastern portion of the grounds of Government Buildings, which would be cut off bv the continuation of Stout Street through such grounds, was to be preserved as a reserve, which latter provision must be contingent upon tho erection of a Hew Telephono Fjxchnnge upon another site, a, contingency which appears to be as remote as ever at the present time.