Building Fever

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 297, 7 March 1928, Page 8

Building Fever

QUEEN STREET FAVOURED New City Blocks Worth £750,000 BACK to Queen Street appears to be the cry in Auckland city building just now. Every big commercial building at present going up is either in Queen Street, or praetically alongside it. There is no hint of a falling-away in the volume of city reconstruction. With the railway station job, there is over £1.000,000 represented in the works just completed, contemplated, or under way. The following table shows the magnitude of the current programme. Round figures only are quoted: Queen Street. Designer. Cost. New Arcade Bloomfield and Hunt £l 2n*2S2 Cooke’s Sinclair O’Connor *O.OtH Keane’s N Sinclair O Connor Vulcan Building Holman, Moses and Watkin fO.OOO Eady’s O. J. G. jPlumley 30.000 St. James’s Theatre H. B. White , Colonial Mutual Swan and Lawrence gO.OOJ Power Board Wade and Bartley so.tH ) Oft Queen Street. ......... nnn Yorkshire (completed) Bloomfield and Hunt Vo-i i South British Grierson, Aimer and Bra Tim £BO,OOO Arcade (Customs Street frontage) Smith and Caughey's R. A. Lippmcott 00,001 Manchester United (completed) L. S. Piper „ New Railway Station Gummer and Ford 200,000

rpHE value of the new city business blocks, including two that are just having the finishing touches applied, is over threequarters of a million, t tit

The most gratifying feature is that more than £600,000 is involved in definite present or future work. Four buildings that are half erected, or well on the way to completion, involve £280,000. There are four big propositions at practically the same stage, these being the South British building (for which the boxing is now up to the first floor), the Vulcan building, Keane’s building, and Smith and Caughey’s. The South British job has a slight start on the others, otherwise the four of them, costing, in the aggregate, about £220,000, represent a constructional race. In addition there is the front part of Cooke’s building, also in the foundation stage, and

offering a good demonstration of the ingenuity of the contractors in keeping an approach open to the completed portion at the back. Two substantial propositions not yet begun are the new arcade, to be formed on an angle between Que.\t Street and Customs Street, alongside the Dilworth Building, and the Power Board’s big eight-storeyed building, to raise its twin Gothic fronts at the corner of Queen Street and Durham Street.

Neither the St. James’s Theatre nor the Colonial Mutual building was designed in Auckland. One interesting feature is that the great proportion of the contracting work is in the hands of one firm, which is erecting all but four of the buildings now’ under construction. The architectural styles show considerable diversity, but nearly all embody modern application of recognised classical principles. Smith and Caughey’s building, for instance, is of modernised Romanesque type. The absence of any verandah, except over the main entrance, suggests that the architect had a freer hand than is usually conceded in the designing of retail shops. The Power Board building, topped by a tower, will be a lofty adaptation of the Gothic style, and the Vulcan building, six storeys and a tower, and the St. James’s Theatre, also with a tower, will help further to break the skyline. Like the Regent Theatre, the St. James job w r as not tendered for. The builders, J. T. Julian and Son, work under a special arrangement with the owners of the property. TREND OF BUILDING The buildings now going up in Queen Street, or about to be started, will sustain activity for another 12 months or so, and there is nothing to show that, before they are completed, another series of big propositions will not develop. In one instance, that of Keane’s building, which is to rise to five floors, the job represents the extension of Wellington business interests to Auckland. For the rest, the new building is mainly the reflection of local enterprise, and its trend implies that Queen Street is still the most favoured business area. In Anzae Avenue, which went ahead with a hurst until recently, no building is at present going on.