The Hub with its bus station and visitor centre will get a major upgrade starting this year. Photos / John Stone
The Hub with its bus station and visitor centre will get a major upgrade starting this year. Photos / John Stone
A $1.6m financial infusion for Whangārei District Council's plan to upgrade facilities at the Town Basin aims to cope with a rush of cruise ship passengers expected by the end of the year.
With first cruise ship bookings coming in for December this year, council wants to ensure the TownBasin's visitor facilities are up to scratch to cater for the influx of people and have received support from central government with a $1,670,000 grant from the Tourism Infrastructure Fund.
The grant is a top-up to the budget council has allocated towards the upgrade as part of their Long Term Plan, and will include an expansion of the bus stop area and altering or extending its shelter.
Footpaths between the Hundertwasser site, bus stops, i-SITE Visitor Centre, and Hātea Loop walkway will be widened, and existing public toilets at the tourist centre and on Lower Dent St will be upgraded.
There are currently to bus stops at the Town Basin hubs - council hopes to extend it to six to eight.
Council's manager for infrastructure planning and capital works Shelley Wharton said council was currently in the planning process and they would release detailed design ideas over the coming months.
"The aim of the upgrade is to make sure the Town Basin is ready for the increase of visitors. The cruise ship industry is starting to make bookings, and we have to respond to the numbers of passengers coming from the port to town," Wharton said.
Whangārei expects its first cruise ship on December 2. The extended bus stop would be designed to cater for passengers coming from the port into town and provide an arrival hub with all amenities and information needed to explore town.
"We want to create a great experience for visitors coming to Whangārei," Wharton said.
Business owner Justin Le Cheminant, who runs the Riverside and Mokaba cafés in the Town Basin, welcomed the planned upgrade saying anything that would enhance visitor experiences was a good thing.
"We have owned our business here for eight years, and council have done an awful lot of work in that time. If there are benefits to be had from what the council does, it is up to us as business owners to take advantage of that and be agile."
He said in his experience, cruise ship passengers usually didn't look at spending a lot of money but for an experience which is where the Hundertwasser would play a big role.
"I don't think local people realise yet how important the Hundertwasser is going to be."
Since council is still in early design stages, council couldn't give definitive information about changes around the parking space.
"We are very constrained by the area around the Town Basin and are not able to increase the parking space easily. Depending on how the new bus stops relate to the parking space, we might after the same amount or less parking lots," Wharton said.
German backpacker Dominic Loof described the bus hub as nice but said more information boards would be handy.
However, council is looking to make the entrance and access ways to the car parks safer as they currently cause disruption of the Dent St traffic flow.
They are also hoping to install new pedestrian crossings at Reyburn House Ln and Lower Dent St for people walking between CBD and the waterfront.
At the moment, pedestrians either dangerously cross the busy four-lane Dent St when or have to walk 130m from the bus hub down to the Dent St/Walton St traffic lights.
To ensure the Town Basin remains accessible, council will be staging the construction works starting with the Town Basin Park in January.
The new park – part of a separate development project – will be located next to the Hundertwasser and include terraced waterfront seating, an amphitheatre and illuminated water jets.
A five to six-month-long upgrade of the playground will follow in March, and further works are scheduled to start in April.
Auckland visitors Holly Davies, left, and Anooshaka McClymont say more signage for visitors would be good.
German backpacker Dominic Loof was visiting Whangārei as part of his work and holiday year described the waterfront as nice and inviting but said more information around the bus stops would come in handy.
"The problem with the bus stop is that there is no timetable. You have to download an app to see what time the bus leaves, but if you don't have that it, it can get complicated," he said while waiting for his bus to Auckland.
Auckland visitors Anooshka McClymont and Holly Davies agreed saying they would like to see digital timetables that indicated the estimated time of arrival as their bus was running late on Friday.
