ARCADIA HOTEL

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 1, 3 January 1939, Page 11

ARCADIA HOTEL

CLOSING TONIGHT

STATE FIRE EXTENSION

The Arcadia Private Hotel in Stout Street will be closing down tonight as a guest-house and is to be vacated on Saturday. The building, which was erected over 30 years, ago, is to be demolished, and also the shop premises alongside it, which are now vacant, to make way for a big extension to tlie State Fire and Accident Insurance building.

A contract ior the addition, the price for which has been given as £150,000, was let in November to the Fletcher Construction Co., Ltd., : Wellington. This company will also be in charge of the demolition work; it is proposed to make a start with the clearing of the site on Monday. It is expected to take three or four weeks to, complete.

The extension of the State Fire building will be along the Lambton Quay frontage and round the corner into Stout Street. The contract provides for the completion of the work in fifteen months..

With this extension and the completion of the big Government offices block, work on which is proceeding on the site adjacent to that occupied by the Arcadia Hotel, the greater part of the block will be occupied by Government buildings. Only recently the State Fire building was added to from the rear, and the addition which is now to be undertaken will complete the plans announced some time ago for the enlargement of the building to provide the extra accommodation required. It has been stated that ultimately the Lambton Quay-Stout Street addition will house the Social SecurityDepartment. In the meantime provision is to be made for this Department in the big wooden building which is being erected in Aitken Street. - The Arcadia Hotel was purchased by the Government in the latter part of 1937,, but since then it has continued as a lodging-house. Some weeks ago the New Zealand Centennial Exhibition Company decided to make representations to the Government not to demolish the hotel until after the Exhibition period because of the anticipated heavy influx of visitors and the big demand for hotel accommodation. The building, however, is to come down without delay.