Art Deco Trust chairwoman Barbara Arnott and heritage manager Jeremy Smith, with the twin World War I memorials of the Cenotaph and the Women's Rest. Photo / Warren Buckland
Art Deco Trust chairwoman Barbara Arnott and heritage manager Jeremy Smith, with the twin World War I memorials of the Cenotaph and the Women's Rest. Photo / Warren Buckland
Plans to restore Napier's historic Memorial Women's Rest rooms as a home for the Art Deco Trust take a big step this week with a move for the nod from the Napier City Council.
The plan comes in a proposal put by the trust seeking a 25-year lease with theright of renewal and offering to take care of the restoration needed for it to be used again - out of action for nine years since a poor seismic assessment result in 2013.
The proposal will be considered by the full council Future Napier Committee on Thursday, with a recommendation from manager property Bryan Faulknor that the council agree in principle and enter into a joint Memorandum of Understanding as the preferred option over the council itself leading the restoration of the Heritage 1 protected building.
Trust chairwoman and former Napier mayor Barbara Arnott says the trust has access to a range of expertise to get the transformation of the building back to a working facility under way later this year, with hopes it could become the trust headquarters next year.
It would again create a connection with the work of influential Napier architect Louis Hay (1881-1948) who designed the building after a 1924 decision to erect a cenotaph and the restroom in the square as a World War I memorial, and a key element in civic centrepieces the Memorial and Clive squares.
A plaque placed on a stone laid during the building of Memorial Square Women's Rest in Napier almost a century ago. Photo / Warren Buckland
Among Hay's many designs in Napier was the old Central Fire Station, which opened in 1924 and was the Art Deco Trust's first home. Incorporated in 1987 it became a full-time operation in 1992 and occupied the old fire station building for the next 20 years before moving to its current site on the corner of Tennyson and Herschell streets.
The restroom sustained extensive damage to exterior walls in the 1931 Hawke's Bay earthquake, after which it became surrounded by the temporary CBD known as "Tin Town".
In 1934 the building was fully restored, retaining the original layout, roof and the base of the brick walls, and is now regarded as having special historical significance as a highly unusual utilitarian memorial designed to benefit women, especially mothers with children.
Its association as a "sibling" memorial to the purely monumental Cenotaph demonstrates the complex post-war debate about appropriate ways to honour the dead, says a Heritage New Zealand citation.
Including a meeting room, it became widely used by community groups and in 1993 was substantially renovated by the City Council to mark the centenary of women's suffrage in New Zealand – 100 years since New Zealand became the first self-governing country in the world to allow women to vote in parliamentary elections.
Its name was changed to the "Memorial Square Community Rooms" to acknowledge the broad use of the facilities but after a council decision in 2013 to refit the single-storey building to better suit the community hub need, a seismic assessment made it unsuitable for public use without appropriate restrengthening and it was closed.
Its continued survival stems from a National Council of Women HB Branch submission to the 2018-2028 Long-Term Plan of the city council, which acknowledged the historical significance and recommended working with parties on options, initially in conjunction with options for the Napier Public Library, its building having itself been closed after a seismic assessment in 2017.
Last year the council resolved to allocate $100,000 of rates funding in year 2 of the LTP for a feasibility study and associated resourcing, and a capital budget of $1.5 million in years 2-3, with $750,000 funded through loans and the remainder external and community funding as a gateway to retaining the rooms.
The trust plans to establish its own project team and hopes the use of the rooms will bring life to the square and improve security in the area, the buildings having for several years been surrounded by high fences to deter vandalism and rough-sleeping in its recesses.
Arnott says the National Council of Woman HB and the Historic Places Trust had submitted to the council on the future of the building 3-4, and the trust, while aware of concerns that it would be moving away from the seat of cruise visitors' arrival in Napier, it is a move motivated by the viability issues of Covid. Spectacularly, it was the loss of that cruise trade and expectations it could be another three years before it returns to pre-Covid levels.
"We've got to be inventive and resourceful to still attract that type of clientele," she says. "The city council has supported the trust since the beginning, and it would be good if the trust can now become more sustainable, past the centenary of the earthquake, in 2031, and beyond."
