£200,000 Involved in New Arcade

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 232, 20 December 1927, Page 16

£200,000 Involved in New Arcade

CUSTOMS ST. PROJECT ANOTHER SHOPPING CENTRE q’HAT the confidence of in- ■*" vestors in the potentialities of Auckland as a source of investment remains unchanged is evidenced in the huge property deal, involving the sum of over £200,000, which was reported in THE SUN yesterday. The Public Trust site in Customs Street, adjacent to the Dilworth Buildings, which forms part of the transaction, and which has frontages of 65ft 3in to Customs Street and 78ft to Fort Lane, with a depth of 90ft, was submitted to auction by Rutherford, Robinson and Austin in October last year, and was passed in at £7OO a foot The price at which it has nory changed hands is £48,000. In conjunction with Messrs. Bloomfield and Hunt, architects, Messrs. Rutherford, Robinson and Austin have devised a scheme to link up the Customs Street site, now occupied by E. G. Pearce, motor sales depot, with Queen Street by means of an arcade 15ft wide, and 20ft high The arcade will commence at Pearce’s shop and will run round the back of the Dilworth Buildings, coming out at Queen Street on the southern side of Irvine Chambers.

BIG UNDERTAKING To carry out this scheme Messrs. James and Fletcher, the purchasers, of the Customs Street property, are co-operating with the Davis Properties, Ltd., who have acquired the block of A. B. Donald, Ltd., in Queen Street, for the sum of £58,000, as reported yesterday. To further complete the scheme, the owners of Irvine’s Buildings, in Queen Street, are also co-operating. , The blocks in question junction at a point behind the Dilworth Buildings, and it will be necesary to reconstruct the Irvine Buildings, and also remodel A. B. Donald’s block, purchased by Davis Properties, Ltd., to permit the construction of the arcade as outlined. It is reported that to rebuild on the Customs Street site, and carry out the necessary alterations to the Queen Street properties, will alone involve a total expenditure involving £IOO,OOO.

COMPARATIVE VALUES The Customs Street site was sold to the Public Trust over seven years ago at a figure approximately one-half of that now realised. The Queen Street properties involved in the present scheme were sold by Rutherford, Robinson, and Austin and P. Hansen and Son, and the Customs Street site by Rutherford, Robinson, and Austin. The arcade and the street frontages of the remodelled building will provide for about 40 shops, the work, it is understood, to be carried out by the Fletcher Construction Company. When completed it will undoubtedly add to the rapidly improving architectural features of that portion of the city, as well as greatly enhancing the value of Customs Street East, a street which in view of the fact that it will be the direct route to the new railway station has excellent prospects of becoming an important shopping centre in the immediate future.