Mayor Wayne Brown ‘fending off’ St James Theatre costing $250k a month, says developer

Sunday, 12 January 2025

The owner of Auckland’s heritage-listed St James Theatre says restoration progress has been stalled yet again while the council inexplicably withholds $15 million it committed to.

Auckland Council has signed off on the funds and is legally obliged to pay, following an agreement made in 2016 under then-mayor Len Brown. The commitment was a critical step in getting the Government to match the funding and enabling the project to happen.

But, theatre owner Steve Bielby says now that works are ready to begin it’s been “radio silence” from the council.

It’s understood that’s likely because mayor Wayne Brown has resisted putting the vote to councillors to ‘rubber stamp’ the funds transfer, indefinitely delaying it from being included as a line item in councillor meeting agendas.

In the meantime, Bielby says every month that goes by without progress is effectively costing the $50m project $250,000, due to inflation.

In a statement, Brown’s office says he is awaiting “further advice” from council officials, and “it would be inappropriate for him to comment at this time”.

Previously, Brown has threatened to demolish the theatre due to its slow progress, calling it an “ugly festering hole in the middle of our main street”.

But Bielby says the mayor doesn’t ultimately have the authority to have it knocked down.

“He can recommend things all he likes, but we will ignore that. It will sit there and it will await the political cycle [if funding is withheld], and then we’ll look at it again.”

That would still be a “devastating” outcome, he adds.

The issue was the subject of a fiery exchange in the November Governing Body meeting, with councillor Mike Lee calling the council’s procrastination a “reputational risk”.

Lee asked council chief executive Phil Wilson why there had been “a curtain of silence” around delaying handing the funds over.

“Mr Wilson, you are the guy that signed off [the agreement] and I want to hear from you whether you consider we are at some reputational, liability and financial risk… [while] there is no clear communication about when this deal will be honoured?”

Mayor Wayne Brown said, “the St James thing… that’s been fended off for a wee bit… [and] I will have a go at answering that…”

But, before the mayor could finish, Lee interjected: “Excuse me, Mr Mayor, you’re not the chief executive officer, please. With all due respect, my question was for the chief executive, thank you very much for that.”

“Sorry… I thought… You were looking at me, and you said I asked you, and I thought you meant me,” a flustered Brown replied.

“For a moment, my pay went up, but… well, I will let the chief executive answer.”

Wilson told councillors that Lee was correct.

“Probably here is not the forum to talk about whether there is legal liability,” he said of the public meeting between councillors.

“I did sign an agreement… And, in so far as there has been some delay in executing that, I think there is at least potentially a reputational risk, but one that we are attempting to manage by having the right communication with those stakeholders.”

Wilson revealed his understanding was that the delay was to do with Queen St frontage of the site, and vaguely added that there are “additional things that I potentially should have taken into account”.

“Certainly there is a sense that you should be availed of advice on other related aspects of that project… I probably can’t speak more to it.”

But, Bielby says he has no idea what Wilson is referring to. The Queen St side of the site no longer has anything to do with the St James, and he says the theatre shouldn’t be held to ransom over it.

Originally the project included a 309-apartment building fronting onto Queen St, but it’s since been uncoupled from the St James to make investment more straightforward, he says.

All of the apartments had been sold off the plan in 2016, but the building was halted when a bank pulled funding, miring the overall project.

“Some people say ‘Stevie stuffed that up’, but I think it was the hard but prudent decision, because it didn’t become a Seascape [unfinished building].”

Meanwhile, Auckland Central MP Chlöe Swarbrick wrote a letter in December urging Mayor Brown to put funding the theatre back on the agenda.

Swarbrick previously said she believed everything was lined up for a re-commitment of the Government’s share of funding, but claimed there had been an intervention by the mayor to stop that from happening.

“What that meant is that council officials ended up getting cold feet and were not able to progress signing off of the deal with the Ministry of Arts, Culture and Heritage, to get this funding out the door, to get contracts signed and get diggers in the ground,” she said.

“We are currently in a state of limbo, which has been brought about because, as I understand it, the mayor has commissioned more advice from council officials, and that we have seen consistent delays of that advice and that information going back to the Governing Body.”

Bielby says Brown has offered to meet him in January. He says he also has a commitment in writing that the Governing Body will finally discuss the issue in its February meeting.

“But it was intended to be [addressed] in the October meeting, then the November meeting… it just goes on.

“It’s concerning if it’s being dragged on deliberately to get to a point where we can’t necessarily deliver what we have to in terms of our obligations. It’s sort of being slow walked out.

“We built in contingencies, but this can’t drag on for months and months.”

For Bielby, it’s already been a 10-year journey of trying to get the restoration off the ground, and he says he’s got plenty of his own financial “skin in the game”.

“There’s moments certainly where I wish I could go back in time and tell myself to run a mile.”

Yet, he still firmly believes in a future where the St James will once again welcome international acts, packing in an audience of around 2000.

“A lot of people don’t realise what a key piece of cultural infrastructure it is, being a venue in between the size of the Power Station and Spark Arena.”

He says if the promised money was put into the St James bank account, he could have the project progressing within a week.

“I don’t think I would still be here if I wasn’t optimistic about it.”