Endangered Public Spaces on Auckland's Waterfront

I took this photo on Wednesday 26th June 2013. It is of an iconic structure at the base of Princes Wharf on Quay Street. The Hilton Hotel development is behind. This building was constructed by the Auckland Harbour Board to house its offices and activities.

It was the first stage of Auckland Harbour Board plans to redevelop the part of Auckland's waterfront which was becoming redundant as containerisation changed the face of the shipping industry and ports.

Auckland Harbour Board planning at the time was conscious of the objective of turning the waterfront into a people place. Public spaces were to the forefront of the original planning.

I've photoshopped the above photo a bit to show how the Auckland Harbour Board (AHB) envisaged their HQ building would look on Princes Wharf next to Quay Street. My work is not that good (sorry about losing the red heritage iron posts, and the ground level access is actually at the centre of the building - not off Quay Street as this picture suggests), but gives a fairly good impression of the AHB design. This had a central set of lifts at the base of the building - but with substantial paved areas all the way underneath the building offering open access onto the base of Princes Wharf from Quay Street.

This image is from a newspaper photo of a model of the proposed Hilton Hotel and Passenger terminal development. It shows the AHB HQ building as it had been constructed.

Here is another newspaper photo - this time of the actual AHB HQ building. You can see the sense of spaces and openness that was intended when the building was established.

You can also see the central access point, and the footprint it took up.

And now we are looking up Princes Wharf. This image is from documentation used in the resource consent process managed by Auckland Regional Council in 1997 when it permitted the development of the Princes Wharf Hilton Hotel, Passenger Terminal and Apartment complex that is there now.

The artist's impression commissioned by the developer and applicant for consent gives the impression of popular public spaces and places, and a sense of the views and public access that would be afforded around the development, and between it and the AHB HQ building which was already in place.

I took this photo montage on the 26th June 2013. It is taken from about the same point as the artist's impression. You can see that the reality is very different from impression. And not just because the artist has left out the AHB HQ....

The good scale public spaces and access do not exist because the space below the AHB building has been infilled. It also does not exist because priority has been given to cars and taken away from pedestrians.

While the former AHB HQ building was controversial at the time of construction - it was built with care and attention for the public domain and public spaces where it was established.

However since that time a careless approach to development and infill has allowed commercial objectives to erode the public domain, and to create a situation on this very significant part of Quay Street and Auckland's waterfront that now needs drastic corrective action.

Do we need a public I Sight and a Mini Market on this site. If there is serious intent behind the objective of opening up the harbour edge stitch, then a good start would be to buy back this ground floor infill development - and repair the urban vandalism that has been allowed to incrementally occur.

And while you're at it - do we really need the ANZ logo writ so large here?