Wellington businesses not looking forward to disruption of Golden Mile construction

Monday, 17 July 2023

Wellington businesses are not looking forward to noise and dirt of Golden Mile construction even though a support package is in the works.

Businesses who opposed the Golden Mile plan are now staring down a tough three years as they watch the upgrade go ahead on the footpath outside their shops.

The Let’s Get Wellington Moving (LGWM) Golden Mile project aims to revitalise the inner-city by widening footpaths and removing most private vehicles from Lambton Quay, Willis St, and Courtenay Place. Early construction works are scheduled to start in September, and major works in the middle of next year.

Owners of Vance Vivian, Yoshi Sushi & Bento, Harford, and The Village Goldsmith were worried local businesses would not survive the noise and disruption of construction work in the central city.

Mayor Tory Whanau has signalled that a business support package, for those affected by the construction of the Golden Mile upgrade, is in the works.

Hamish Vance, co-owner of Vance Vivian with his brother Robert, is confident their business can survive, but is not looking forward to noise and dirt pushing customers away for months.

In the meantime, business owners are confused about when construction will begin and what kind of support might be available.

Hamish Vance owns Vance Vivian, a menswear shop on Lambton Quay, with his brother Robert. The business was started by their grandfather in 1924.

“Our company has been through world wars, it’s been through depressions, it’s been through earthquakes,” he said.

Vance believed their business would make it through the Lambton Quay upgrade, but it wouldn’t be easy with construction noise and dirt pushing customers away. Vance always has the doors of the shop wide open.

Back when Cuba St was pedestrianised Vance Vivian was one of the businesses that moved from the street, and he recalled the disruption was “huge”. He anticipated the Golden Mile project would be the same.

“I actually don’t think those councillors [who voted for the plan] care about people like us. Because they feel that we will go, and somebody will come back and replace us. They won’t. That’s the problem.”

Co-owner of Yoshi Sushi & Bento Helen Kono says she supports progress but businesses would need support through the construction of Let’s Get Wellington Moving’s Golden Mile project

He hates shopping malls but believes that’s where customers will go as Wellington is disrupted with road cones and jackhammers.

“I love walking down a street like Lambton Quay and having all sorts of shops that are independent. That’s the beauty of it.”

Helen Kono, who owns Yoshi Sushi & Bento with her husband Yoshi, said the plan had “started out sounding great” but it had been disappointing to see her concerns about access for deliveries weren’t addressed.

Now the construction work was coming at a time when, as a business, they were “fighting 24/7 to survive”.

It had been a tough few years for the business, which had shops on Lambton Quay and Willis St. They had to shut their Featherston St shop during Covid, after many long nights worrying about staff and adjusting to different Covid alert levels.

Then, their Lambton Quay shop was hit with aggressive customers who wanted to come in without a vaccine pass during the Parliament occupation in February last year.

All of it has been compounded by fewer workers coming into the central city as they switch to increasingly working from home, which Kono thought was the “biggest issue” affecting them.

“Once it’s finished, and they work through some of the teething issues, it’d be great to have a beautiful, thriving city.

Richard Harford, owner of Harford Menswear, says there is “sheer frustration” at the Let’s Get Wellington Moving process from shops on Lambton Quay.

“But will there be enough businesses left at the end of it? Because if businesses can’t get customers coming in, during the construction, they’re not going to survive to see the end, to see that city.”

Kono thought it would be great to have support through the construction period and looked forward to seeing what Whanau was going to announce.

Richard Harford, owner of Harford menswear on Lambton Quay, said there was “sheer frustration” that businesses had not been listened to. He could see the need for revitalisation on Courtenay Place but thought Lambton Quay should be left alone.

“I dare say in five years you might not have any independent businesses left on Lambton Quay.”

His shop had been open since 1989 on Lambton Quay and he said it was difficult to encourage staff into a retail career when there was so much upheaval.

“The frightening thing is how is this going to affect turnover? At the moment we’re trading reasonably well but the difficulty I have, looking forward, is you start altering, digging, planting trees, changing traffic flows, people are going to stop coming.”

Harford said the brief interruption two weeks ago, when the end of Lambton Quay was closed to construct a crane, had a noticeable effect on turnover.

Ian Douglas, owner of The Village Goldsmith jewellers, was confident his business would survive the upgrade, with customers coming from around New Zealand.

“There's strident advocates for this and how gorgeous and green it's all going to be. Look, that would be absolutely fantastic if it did happen but you know in the meantime, we're going to have three years of disruption.”

There was a lot of uncertainty and he was constantly hearing complaints about parking in the city ‒ he said he had postponed a major $500,000 upgrade of the shop in order to wait and see how the Golden Mile changes turned out.

“People see the vision and see what’s going to look like and and buy into that, which is understandable, but they’re not literally on the ground.

“Disruptions for those sorts of events when they occur which are dramatic and they do have an effect on on business.”