Heritage building saved - for now

Campaigner Helen Geary outside the century-old Building 5 in Greenlane. Photo / Greg Bowker

The century-old male infirmary ward at Greenlane Hospital has been saved from demolition, but the Auckland District Health Board is not ruling out making an application in the future to replace it.

The board has withdrawn a demolition consent for Building 5 and an appeal against the Auckland City Council to register it as a category B heritage building.

This followed a two-year battle between the board and health worker Helen Geary with backing from colleagues, Auckland Regional Council chairman Mike Lee and councillor Sandra Coney, Auckland City Mayor John Banks, the Historic Places Trust and heritage campaigner Allan Matson.

Former Prime Minister and Minister of Arts, Culture and Heritage Helen Clark was also concerned about the fate of the building.

Helen Geary yesterday welcomed the preservation of a small record of early Auckland institutional healthcare, but was concerned about the board's commitment to heritage buildings at Greenlane.

"I hope they now understand that, as a public institution, they have a duty to look after recognised heritage and maintain and appropriately reuse Building 5 and the adjacent Costley Block," she said.

The 1890 Costley Home for the Aged Poor has a category B heritage protection. The two-storey brick and plaster Building 5 was designed in 1907 by architect G.W. Allsop with aspects of Queen Anne revival.

Deputy chairman Harry Burkhardt said the board had dropped its appeal against heritage registration of Building B because the possible use of the site for a new children's mental health facility had not crystallised.

Mr Burkhardt said the board needed to keep its options open about the future use of the Greenlane site to provide health services.

Asked if that could include an application in future to demolish Building 5, he said that would be one option.

Mr Burkhardt said there was currently no funding to maintain Building 5 after no one showed interest in paying for an upgrade.

"Some serious money needs to go into that building to get it into a form that can be reused," he said.

An upgrade was estimated to cost $4 million, plus $1 million for a fit-out.

Sandra Coney said adaptation and reuse of Building 5 would be no more expensive than a rebuild.

"Building 5 is part of a virtually unchanged cluster of hospital buildings which show the ways Aucklanders organised to care in a humane way for their ill and infirm citizens from an early date," she said.

"Auckland has lost so much heritage, yet we know residents value their historic landmarks and legacy from the past."