Auckland’s midtown struggles amid construction and economic woes

Saturday, 28 June 2025

A once bustling part of the city is stuck amid infrastructure works and an economic downturn.

Auckland’s once bustling midtown arts district has gone quiet.

The area is languishing amid roadworks, rail construction, and an economic downturn.

Businesses are struggling, and some have closed.

Prior to the Covid epidemic, Sky World on Queen St housed a bustling foodcourt.

In past decades, Auckland’s arts quarter around the Aotea Centre boasted multiple theatres, a multi-storey bookstore and varied food outlets, including a lively foodcourt.

But this once bustling part of Auckland is languishing between roadworks, rail station construction, and water infrastructure works.

“For Lease” signs adorn shopfronts between the Civic Theatre and Aotea Centre.

For some, it’s just a matter of hanging on, while for other business owners, it was all too much. Is there light at the end of the tunnel for Auckland’s midtown?

“Queen St is really dead. Rent is too high in the city and people are not coming,” says Maninder Chouhan, who opened a vape store on Queen St, just up from the Civic Theatre, in late 2023.

“We were perfectly fine, we moved in in November and we were pretty busy.”

Watercare is laying a new wastewater pipe beneath Queen St at the intersection with Wellesley St.

But when Watercare and Auckland Transport both started infrastructure work nearby last year, things took a turn for the worse.

“We were never getting any customers, and not getting any tourists. We were struggling.”

Unable to make enough to cover the $5500 monthly rent bill, wages and electricity costs, Chouhan closed the shop in October.

Richard O'Hanlon, owner of Remedy Cafe, said the decline started years ago.

Delays with City Rail Link construction didn’t help, and “landlords don’t care, they want their money”, he said.

Other businesses just hanging on in the area were thinking about closing, Chouhan said.

Richard O’Hanlon knows this part of town like the back of his hand - before opening Remedy Cafe near the corner of Queen St and Wellesley St in 2010, he ran the London Bar upstairs.

St James Theatre closed after a fire in 2007.

The area has been on a downward slide for decades, since a fire closed St James Theatre in 2007, O’Hanlon said.

With theatres, galleries and universities nearby, this part of town should be vibrant, but was “a bit like a kitchen sink”, he said. “If you leave a few dirty things in the sink, it gets dirtier and dirtier.”

City workers switching to working from home during the Covid epidemic, and not rushing back to the city, had exacerbated the decline, he said.

The economic downturn, drawn-out construction projects and a homelessness issue created “the perfect storm for the city centre”, Waitemata ward councillor Mike Lee said.

And the water infrastructure and bus interchange construction made the area “like The Labyrinth, but without David Bowie, and the big hair, and Jim Henson puppets”.

Instead of businesses leaving the area, O’Hanlon wants to see more opening: “Competition is good for business, more pubs bring more people, more restaurants bring more restaurants.”

For Chouhan, council-organised festivals that brought people in would “be helpful for businesses”.

Premises in the Sky World building facing Aotea Centre display “For Lease” signs.

But Waitematā ward councillor Mike Lee said the damage had already been done.

“Obviously there are wider economic aspects to this that are global, the impact of shopping malls, bank interest rates, the downturn in the economy. But there are other successful high streets and main streets around the world.”

Added to the economic downturn, drawn-out construction projects and a homelessness issue were “the perfect storm for the city centre”, Lee said.

“The closure of Smith and Caughey’s after 145 years is symbolic and symptomatic of the problem.”

In 2016, at a ceremony marking the start of construction on the 3.45km CRL tunnel and stations, “one would never have dreamed it would take 10 years”, Lee said.

“It’s almost like the city centre has got a dose of long Covid, and while Auckland seems to be depressed, the city centre has got depression in both senses of the word.”

It wasn’t too late to change things, he said, but that would mean completing all the construction projects as soon as possible, and tackling homelessness with “a more interventionist, humane approach”.

Robert Platt, managing director of Icon Group, which owns the T&G Building on Wellesley St West, was more optimistic.

“There’s no doubt the scale of construction in midtown has created pressure, particularly for hospitality operators.

“But what we’ve seen across our portfolio, including Elliott Stables and our Wellesley St retail shops, is that our long-standing and successful operators have adapted and customers have stayed loyal. However, for less established operators, they have struggled to operate successfully with reduced foot traffic.”

The opening of Te Waihorotiu Station, the date for which is yet to be determined, will be transformational for the precinct, Platt said.

“We see this moment as a short-term challenge, but the long-term gain is significant — better transport, higher footfall, and a more activated city.

“What this area needs now is completion of the streetscape upgrades, a return of accessible short-term parking, and activation of pedestrians at the street level.”

And with the delayed International Convention Centre expected to open nearby in February 2026, Platt expects a “surge of new life” in midtown.

Watercare’s midtown wastewater diversion project involves laying a 1.2m-diameter pipe under a 600m stretch of Queen St, and is expected to be completed at the Wellesley St intersection by the end of March 2026.