Project Auckland: CRL station to boost regeneration of Midtown

An artist’s impression of the finished Te Waihorotiu City Rail Link station. Photo / Supplied

Midtown, the area that will soon be served by the new Te Waihorotiu City Rail Link Station, is Auckland’s next significant regeneration project.

Jenny Larking, who heads Auckland Council’s City Centre Programmes, says when the station opens, thousands of people from all over the region will pour out onto the local streets each day.

They’ll enter an area that offers a unique mix of culture, arts and entertainment venues.

Te Waihorotiu Station will be underground with entrances on both Victoria St and Wellesley St.

“It will be a catalyst. It will change midtown; the area will immediately be much more accessible,” says Larking.

“Midtown is a special area with its own particular character and private sector development is already under way, anticipating the growth that the station will bring. There will be more office buildings and more homes. More people will live and work in the area and that means growth in this part of town will intensify.”

The Auckland Council’s role is to provide the space and prepare the infrastructure needed to support the businesses and residents that will relocate into the area.

Larking says that means creating an attractive place that people will want to visit and spend time in. “Businesses want to be located where it’s easy to get to, where there is a lot of foot traffic. People want to live where they are close to work. They like to be near entertainment, cafes and dining opportunities. Students want to be close to where they study. Midtown will have all that.

“We’re seeing encouraging early signs that retailers are choosing to locate themselves midtown. They are excited about what the City Rail Link could mean for them. We’ve already seen Real Groovy move into the area. I’m personally looking forward to the new eatery.”

Te Hā Noa sits at the core of the regeneration. This is the name for the linear park that will turn Victoria St into a tree-lined avenue with a single road traffic lane in each direction alongside a protected cycleway.

The footpaths will become much wider and there will be places for people to sit and relax, in some cases under the trees.

Jenny Larking.

Larking says the council hopes cafes and restaurants will spill out onto the paved areas and bring life to the area: “We’ve designed it so that there are many opportunities for outdoor dining. We’ve allocated space that can be activated, so you might imagine the likes of Real Groovy having some of their music flowing out into the street.

“We’ve been working with business associations and businesses to bring their internal experiences outside. Te Hā Noa is still going to function as a traffic corridor, but it will also be a public space for people to enjoy.”

The space will be asymmetric: it has been designed so there is a wider space on the sunny side of the street where people can enjoy lunch sitting outdoors in an area that has not had many amenities of this nature in the past.

The Waihorotiu path in Midtown, Queen Street. Photo / Sylvie Whinray

Te Hā Noa isn’t an isolated project, it forms part of a bigger picture.

Larking says the council is developing or has previously developed a series of projects in Federal St, Myers Park and Queen St.

“We’re gradually stitching together all of those circulation routes. So whether you get around by walking, cycling or public transport, there are now choices for whichever mode you find comfortable.”

The Auckland Council’s masterplan vision is for a tree-lined walking route from Albert Park to Victoria Park.

“Te Hā Noa’s trees and planting are an inherent part of that vision. We’ve got more than 20 new native trees going into the space. We envisage that as they get mature, it will become a place where people don’t just walk around, they will gather, have lunch and enjoy themselves. It creates a green oasis in the centre of town, right in the hub of the Queen St valley, giving people a park-like feel.”

She says the council has designed the project in three parts to minimise disruption. “We plan to finish one section before starting another.”

Step one runs along Victoria St from Queen St to Elliot St. Work begins on this at the start of April.

“We’ll be constructing this in parallel with the work on the City Rail network. We’ll work along one side of the street with them, then flip over to work on the other side. That component will be close to its finished state early next year. We may have to wait to plant the trees, that has to be done in the right season,” Larking says.

“From there we will move to the other side of Queen St. Work on that will start at the Kitchener St end, while Watercare completes the work it needs to do between Queen St and High St. Then we’ll move on to the area between Queen St and High St. That should take us through to mid to late 2025.”

Planning and sequencing the construction project was one of Larking’s team’s biggest focuses.

“We needed to minimise the impact on neighbouring businesses and residents. The City Rail Link construction has been there for several years now. We have other construction projects by our council family in place as well as private-sector work. It was clear from elected council members and others there were concerns about the work.

“We worked with City Rail Link, Auckland Transport, Watercare and others to ensure we didn’t close the road any more than we needed to. Then we chunked our construction staging so that we are not impacting the same stakeholder over a certain duration. This is why we chose not to do the whole street at once.

“By doing it in small chunks we could get each part over quickly and get out, returning the street to businesses and other users.”

Larking says her team learned from the experience of the City Rail Link construction and the work done in the Downtown area and in Karangahape Rd about the strategies that worked and what hasn’t worked, then looked at the pain points and factored all that into planning the Midtown work.

• The Auckland Council is a sponsor of the Herald’s Project Auckland report