Queenstown's $85 million facelift to include CBD upgrade, ring road

Friday, 10 July 2020

Queenstown is set to get a multimillion-dollar facelift to keep the town relevant for locals and tourists.

A government-sponsored facelift that includes a business district upgrade and major roading projects will be the first sign of the new life being breathed into Queenstown.

When Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced an $85 million infrastructure fund for the tourist hotspot in June, locals, business owners and visitors familiar with the town may well have sighed in relief.

For years logging trucks, tourist buses, construction vehicles, parents picking up kids from school and campervans have jostled around pedestrians and sat at a standstill for periods to rival any traffic jam in Auckland, as they try to make their way through the tiny town centre.

It was a looming problem in the 1990s, before Queenstown began attracting 3.9 million visitors a year.

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An artist's impression of Queenstown's Melbourne St when it becomes part of a bypass route.

The mayor at the time, Warren Cooper, tried to get a bypass road built.

The council was reluctant to take on the financial burden of up to $4.6m and while the former cabinet minister was close to securing government funding, interest in the project diminished when he left the mayoralty in 2001.

“I was giving up hope of seeing it in my lifetime,” Cooper says.

Former Queenstown mayor Warren Cooper tried to get funding for the Queenstown bypass 20 years ago.

In 2017, current mayor Jim Boult announced $140m would be spent on the Inner Links project, an extension of the original Man St bypass plan.

A $50m chunk of the Government’s $85m will get the first stage under way – a diversion off Frankton Rd, via Melbourne and Henry streets to Shotover St.

The second stage will enable the bypass to Man St and the third stage takes it to the Fernhill roundabout and the road to Glenorchy.

Funding is not yet secure for those, but Boult says it would be “crazy” not to proceed with stage two, which will require the destruction of the town’s Memorial Centre and council buildings.

Plans to rebuild them are tied up in a joint venture with Ngāi Tahu known as Project Manawa. The iwi has confirmed it is still working on the project despite recent news it is pulling out of plans to build hot pools in central Queenstown.

Project Manawa includes construction of community and arts spaces, a new library, a performance and visual arts centre, a town square, and commercial buildings, as well as a new council administration building, in central Queenstown.

”Manawa” translates as “heart” and the project is largely an attempt to keep central Queenstown a place relevant to residents, who are increasingly living their lives away from the congestion of the town centre in nearby Frankton.

Queenstown Lakes District Council infrastructure manager Peter Hansby says the bypass road will also create more space for car parking on the outskirts of the CBD and more room for commercial expansion. It also enables construction of a planned public transport hub.

The remaining $35m of government funding, and a council contribution of $22m, will be spent on the central town’s streetscape.

“Downtown Queenstown is one of the most important tourism assets in the whole country … but it is tired. It is not looking pristine,” Boult says.

There will no longer be footpaths or roadways, but a seamless path for pedestrians and vehicles – and a much lower speed limit.

Paving will be redone, outdoor furniture added and outdoor dining extended.

Queenstown Lakes mayor Jim Boult says downtown is looking tired.

Water infrastructure will be renewed and replaced after two occasions of water pipes bursting in recent years.

Hansby says the post-Covid timing is perfect.

“If you’re going to do it would you really want to do it when you’re busy? This is quite a good opportunity from a disruption perspective but also from the costs of doing it.”

Overall the project would shift the emphasis from cars to pedestrians and people with a high priority on public transport, he says.

“It’s a real lift in terms of quality and ability to use.”

Traffic congestion continues to be a problem in Queenstown - even without tourists.

Cooper has his doubts.

“I haven’t got a clue why they would spend $35m on five streets that I think are perfectly good streets now. They’ve got some quite strange ideas.

“Queenstown currently is, in my opinion, the most attractive proposition of a tourism magnet in the Southern Hemisphere. To make it so exclusive that everybody should stay out of town and come in on a bus or bike is nonsensical.”

Ardern says the projects will unlock about $300m of projects in the town and create about 320 direct jobs.

Boult says the “shot in the arm” is much-needed.

The Queenstown Lakes District is taking a massive hit with Covid-19. The indefinite closure of international borders has stripped the town of about 70 per cent of its tourists and a recent report predicted it would lose about 7900 jobs, pushing unemployment to 18.5 per cent.

The creation of construction jobs will help many individuals and support the construction industry, Queenstown’s second-biggest industry, Boult says.

The council has also announced the start of work to upgrade the water and roading infrastructure needed for the Lakeview Precinct – a massive 10-hectare commercial and residential development site on the former Queenstown camping ground site, being built in partnership with Ninety Four Feet and Augusta Capita.

At the opposite end of town, Queenstown is due to have $90m of NZ Transport Agency funding spent on easing congestion on SH6 and public transport.

Boult sees this including ferries, more active transport and an autonomous electric or hydrogen-powered public transport system – all essential to relieving the chronic congestion in Queenstown.

Even without tourists, Boult still finds himself stuck at the end of a long tail of traffic heading into Queenstown from the east.

“I kinda see the funny side of it now because everyone’s blamed it on tourists.”

Earlier this month, Boult spoke to the first post-Covid-19 gathering of Queenstown Chamber of Commerce members and acknowledged the difficult future they faced.

However, the infrastructure projects were a bright light, he said.

“You could see the smiles on people’s faces when we talked about planning for the future and what we were going to do in the future.

“This is probably the most attractive part of the world and that’s not going to change.

“People will come back. The tourism industry will recover … whether it gets back to the numbers we saw pre-Covid, I kinda doubt it, but it will come back and now is the right time to be doing this.”