CITY IMPROVEMENTS.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 4812, 24 August 1876, Page 3

CITY IMPROVEMENTS.

The Reformed Wesleyans, who have for some months been meeting for worship in the Odd Fellows’ Hall, are now having a place of meeting erect for themselves in Courtenayplace. ■ The congregation hns grown encouragingly under the ministrations of the Rev. Mr. Redstone, and the design in building is to erect a schoolhouse, to be used in the first place for public worship, and thereafter to erect a church, as the membership increases and consolidates. We observe that tenders are invited for the erection of a schoolhouse for the Christian Brothers. The building is to be erected in Boulcott-street, to which it will have a frontage of ninety feet. It is to be of an H form, each wing being 64tt. in depth. The main schoolroom is 58ft. by 30ft., and adjoining it are several classrooms, 20 x 15, connected by means of folding-doors. The Christian Brothers will live on the premises, and for them at.present accommodation is provided on the ground floor. The building is of the Italian order, and over the main entrance rises a campanile tower, 58ft. high, surmounted by a flagstaff. Space is to be left for a clock, but the clock may not be fixed there yet. Should some large-hearted citizen wish to distinguish himself this would be a capital opportunity. We may mention that Mr. Turnbull, who has designed so many of the handsome buildings of Wellington, is the architect for the school. It is anticipated that boththegirls’ schoolatThorndou and the boys’ school in Boulcott-street will be in full working order by the end of January. Messrs. Murdoch and Rose, the well-known builders, have secured the tender for the erection, for Mr. J. B. Brown, of the National Hotel, which is to take the place of the old European Hotel. The amount of the tender is said to be somewhere about £I6OO, and the ba.uiing is to be completed by the end of November. The house will be exceedingly commodious, and well adapted for a large business, and as Mr. Turnbull, the architect, has designed a very handsome front, it will greatly add to the appearance of this part of Lambtonquay. The frontage of the building will be 40ft. long with a depth of 66ft. Downstairs there is a bar 14ft. by 18ft., in a recess within an archway, and at the rear are barparlors, and then further behind a very fine bil-liard-room 28Jft. by 194 feet. On the other side of the hall, which runs in the centre of the building, are commercial rooms, diningrooms, parlors, &c., with kitchen, scullery, and outhouse at the back. On the second floor are fourteen bedrooms and private parlors, together with bathrooms, &c. During the past few months building in the City of Wellington has progressed with a rapidity seldom seen anywhere within so short a period, which must be apparent, it may be said, to the very least observant of persons who daily walk the town. New houses, dwellings, and shops, are making their appearance in every part of the town almost as quickly as do the indifferent buildings on a new goldfield. But these building operations are most remarkable in the heart of the ' city and the Te Aro end of the town. There are a number of large and really ornamental edifices nearly finished in the direction of Customhouse-quay, chief among them being those for Messrs. Stevenson and Stuart. Then there is a large building approaching completion in Manners-street for Messrs, Beck and Tonks ; and it may be remarked that building operations are extending from the com- ■ mencement of Manners-street, at its junction with. Willis-street, to the Adelaideroad. Where a very short time ago there were vacant allotments, in the vicinity of the Te Aro pa for instance, there is now a respectable row of houses, many of them completed, and all done within the space of a few months. The same may be said of the upper part of Willis-street, while the town is rapidly extending in the direction of Te Aro. There are few more healthy signs than these, as indicating the progress of a town ; and when we consider the wonderful increase of the population of Wellington within a short time, and the consequent extension of the building trade and business generally, it should not be wondered at that land should still command high prices. Albeit many persons profess to wonder that such prices should reign, and sagaciously (in their own minds, no doubt) regard it as an indication of a speedy and sudden depression as far as that particular line of speculation is concerned. Present events, however, would seem to suggest that no such depression will occur for a long time, or at least that when rent and the price of land shall fall they will only fall in a gradual and natural manner, consequent on tho more general settlement of the place, and when the flood of emigration of all classes shall have become less powerful.