News and Notes

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 41, 11 May 1927, Page 12

News and Notes

During last year the Canberra Commission spent £1,745,162 on public works at the Federal capital. It is estimated that 22.000,000 bricks and 750,000 tiles have already been used in the construction of the city.

A building scheme which is understood to be unique in New Zealand in its purpose is just being commenced on Wellington Terrace, Wellington. The site of Dr. W. E. Herbert’s residence, on the corner of the Terrace and Bolton Street, is being used for the erection of a block of doctors’ and dentists’ suites. The section has a frontage to the Terrace of 66 feet and a depth of 107 feet. The contract has been let to the Fletcher Construction Company, at a price in the vicinity of £ 50,000.

Current and projected building in Melbourne covers large expenditure on many important structures. The new National Bank, in Collins Street; the Temperance and General building, in Russell Street; several warehouses in Flinders Lane and elsewhere; the new Union Bank, at the corner of Latrobe and Elizabeth Streets, opposite “The Argus” office, and the Town Hall reconstruction and Public Library extension are current works involving an expenditure of about £1,000,000. A 27-storey hotel is to be erected on the north-east corner of Seventh Avenue and Fifty-third Street, New York, with an “L” running to Fifty-fourth Street, at a cost of £1,700,000. It will have 1,200 rooms, each to have an individual bathroom. The structure will be built by the K.B.S. Realty Corporation. The building will have six high-speed elevators. The design is of Italian Renaissance, with a granite limestone base, face brick shaft with main cornice, band courses and ornametal treatments in terra-cotta. The roofs at set back will be paved in quarry tile to afford promenades. The hotel will be of the commercial type, with a spacious lobby, writing rooms, beauty parlour, barber shop, valet, bootblack and self service cafeteria in the basement and coffee shop.