Some perspective on heritage buildings needed

Sunday, 4 August 2024

There are some buildings worth saving - and some that are just eyesores, writes Wayne Brown

Wayne Brown is Auckland Mayor.

OPINION: I want to talk about old buildings this week. I’ve had lots of experience with them having owned them, bought them, sold them, upgraded them, restored them, repurposed them, moved them, demolished them, lived in them, loved them and loathed them.

Auckland Art Gallery in Auckland CBD is a good restoratoin example

I grew up in a rough-cast plastered, uninsulated bungalow with a fraction of the roof structure required these days, which is now over 100 years old and going strong. The residence I’ve lived in for the longest period, and which I still own. is a much loved listed historic building which would meet almost none of the current 50-year durability rules, yet is looking great a mere 117 years after opening.

I was structural engineer for the restoration of NZ’s two oldest buildings, being the Kemp House and the Stone Store in Kerikeri. My staff have restored an 1863 Hotel and a much loved very old Māori Catholic Church and I have developed a good working relationship with NZ Historic Places Trust but there are mixed results across the country.

Most people love restored and repurposed precincts like Devonport, which is flourishing and great to visit. But just because a building is old doesn’t mean it is worth categorising as heritage and with it costs and difficulties that may not be worth the effort.

Within 500m of my Auckland mayoral office there are examples of the very best and the very worst of heritage decisions and actions.

The Civic was restored to its former glory with its labyrinth of hallways and wonderful ceiling. This was done in only twice the time it took to build it in the first place, largely due to our current curses of over-design, over-management and over-safety but the result is a great asset to the city.

Not far away the very best of restoration is taking place at the City Art Gallery where I have crawled over the works replacing the 100 year old slate roof, and the windows and walls are being refreshed with only an acceptable minimum of the plague of seismic strengthening which Wellington is inflicting on our city buildings. This will be a wonder when finished.

The derelict St James Theatre in Auckland CBD should be pulled down to make way for a modern apartment building, writes Brown.

Just behind the Town Hall which has been well maintained, we find what can only be described as a heritage mistake which is the CAB building, a recently completed upgrade of the old council office building. Somehow some people got themselves appointed as heritage experts and convinced council to list this building which had all the architectural flair of an aluminium ladder. Councillor Sharon Stewart distinguished herself by being the only councillor at the time to oppose this classification.

Council sold this to a developer for what some councillors thought was a bargain price of $3 million, when in fact the cleared site would have been worth way more. A well respected construction firm took on the upgrade to apartments of the rickety asbestos filled plain building and the result is okay but money has been lost and the sale price not even collected.

Not far from this is the worst example of what can go wrong with ill thought-out, emotionally-driven heritage classification, and that is the old Saint James building originally owned by Kerridge Odeon then Pacer Corporation who managed to flog it off just before heritage status was conferred on it.

The result is an eyesore near Queen St where a rusting frame is holding up about 6m of uninteresting old facade and behind that is a decaying mess, including the heritage covered interior of the old Saint James theatre.

Decades later no developer has managed to make financial sense of redeveloping what should by now have been a modern, multi story, mixed building of apartments, offices, hotel and ground floor retail. Instead, what we have is tiny struggling retail offerings more in keeping with the Easter show and a general area of decline which has infected wonderful buildings with wonderful offerings like the much loved and possibly about to be lost Smith and Caughey’s.

This is the worst possible example of heritage status setting areas back. Heritage status has driven all sorts of weird behaviour, the most hypocritical of all being the old His Majesty theatre, which is now the site of the City Life Hotel. I obtained the demolition permit on behalf of the owners rushing to act before heritage status was granted and this was delivered to the site at 5am by the then mayor, Dame Cath Tizard. She sensibly didn’t want a low cost competitor to the Aotea Centre then near completion.

I had great pleasure demolishing the column that had years before prevented me from seeing the stage as I sat between my parents at a performance of The Sound of Music.

On balance it is great to see sensible restoration of our valued heritage buildings and I support the repairs to Leys Institute. But not because of seismic damage of which there is none but because it makes sense to repair cracks that are due to shrinkage and other causes mostly being lack of maintenance - which sadly gets forgotten in most cases until the restoration has become almost financially insurmountable.

Some sense and perspective is needed in this sector.

What do you think? Email sundayletters@stuff.co.nz.