Crown acquires last privately-owned building in way of new Christchurch stadium

Thursday, 22 April 2021

A banner draped across the front of the NG building as part of the last stand by the owners to save it.

The Crown has finally acquired the NG building, the last privately-owned property standing on the site planned for Christchurch's new stadium.

Governor-General Dame Patsy Reddy gazetted a notice on Tuesday, which said the land at 212-214 Madras St had been taken under the Greater Christchurch Regeneration Act.

Acquisition has been completed and the Government will legally become owners of the building on May 4.

But the future of the 115-year-old building is unclear as the Crown says it remains open to the idea of the building being deconstructed or salvaged, so long as doing so does not affect the new stadium.

* Moving NG building away from Christchurch stadium the 'preferred outcome'

The building sits near the southwest corner of the three city blocks designated for the stadium. The surrounding buildings are all owned by the Crown.

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There is no right of objection under the legislation used to acquire the NG building.

Frank Film looks at the last-ditch effort to save a heritage building from the giant footprint of Christchurch’s new multi-arena stadium.

The Christchurch City Council previously confirmed the site needed to be cleared to make way for the $473m stadium being built across the three city blocks bordered by Madras, Hereford, Barbadoes and Tuam streets.

Lydia Bloy, group manager for Crown property from Land Information New Zealand (Linz), which is responsible for acquiring land, said the Crown notified the owners on April 14 that it would proceed with compulsory acquisition.

“Linz appreciates this is not the decision the property owners were hoping for,” Bloy said. She said Linz had been trying since last year to acquire the building by mutual agreement.

The Crown remained open to discussions about “possible deconstruction or salvage options” for the building, Bloy added, if it did not impede delivery of the stadium.

The buildings surrounding the NG were already owned by the Crown.

Confirmation of the acquisition of the NG building brought to a close a longstanding fight by the owners to save it.

Owners Roland Logan and Sharon Ng had expressed an interest to move the building to a different place on the stadium site, or even to another piece of nearby land if it could be purchased.

They previously said their primary concern was saving the building.

Logan declined to comment on Thursday, but the pair previously said they would consider taking legal action.

Linz said the relocation of the building was considered by the council-owned company behind the stadium, but it had found this was not practicable.

Stuff first reported the project management company was seeking to “urgently” acquire the building on February 23, the day after the 10-year anniversary of the February 2011 earthquake.

Linz took the first step in the acquisition process in early March and published a notice of intention to take the NG building.

At the time, Linz said that was done following “reasonable endeavours to acquire the property”.

The initial proof of concept developed by architects for the stadium included the NG building – but the city council has said this concept showed the stadium was not optimally located.

The same architects backtracked on their initial concept in two 2020 reports, which both recommended the acquisition of the building.