COMMENT:
Auckland Council's fire sale of the Civic Administration Building (CAB) for a paltry $3 million - with (less than) $100,000 down and the balance upon sale of apartments - is probably the worst example of public property value destruction in the history of Auckland local government.
Built as Auckland's first skyscraper, of modernist architecture in 1966, the CAB was carefully sited near the Town Hall on land acquired by the former Auckland City Council to form a civic square. Aotea Square was opened by mayor Dove Myer Robinson in 1979 and completed with the opening of the Aotea Centre by mayor Cath Tizard in 1990. At that time, Auckland City extracted all the asbestos that was accessible and practicable to extract from the CAB, confirmed by regular air testing for fibre asbestos indicating the building "was safe for normal occupation" by council staff.
Even before the new Super City had been established in November 2010, I was informed that its incoming leading bureaucrats intended to buy the ASB Bank tower at 135 Albert St for their new headquarters. A year later, a slim majority of Auckland councillors were persuaded to go along with buying the 29-storey Albert Street tower. This was purchased in mid-2012 for $104m followed soon after by $24.5m spent on a plush interior "fit out".
Evidently so eager were council managers to move into to what staff call "the proud tower", only cursory due diligence was undertaken. A council finance manager later explained (with unintended irony) that this normal commercial procedure was thought "too costly". Compounding this blunder, the council waived the building warranty. This would prove to be very expensive for Auckland ratepayers.