Chancery developers aim to retain charm

By Bob Dey

Chancery's developers unveiled their central Auckland project publicly yesterday - a scheme designed to maintain the spirit of small-frontage High St, the first stage worth $60 million to be completed in 11 months and the whole project more likely to be worth $250 million.

It will turn the High St precinct of the city into more of a fashion centre than it already is, pitching it into competition with Newmarket Broadway.

But the key feature, which will delight opponents of Auckland's recent concrete and mirror glass past, is that joint developers Mission Corporation and Westmark Group want to retain the charm of the neighbourhood, setting any highrise elements up the hill towards Princes St.

While Mission's Mark Lyon, and Westmark directors Richard Kroon and Brian Mead, outlined their Chancery development in the Pioneer Women's Hall, pop artist Mark Sandman sat at his easel creating his perception in oils of what is to be built across the road.

The Chancery joint venture has picked up where NZI finished a decade ago, still with plans to build within two of the three tower envelopes for which NZI had consent and the insurance group's property manager, Sentry Investments, renewed consent last year.

NZI planned 73,000 sq m of offices, most of it to be taken up by its own staff, in towers rising between 17 and 22 levels above a huge podium on the 1ha site facing Freyberg Place, Chancery and Kitchener Sts.

The block where work on the first stage has begun is across Courthouse Lane from Andrew Krukziener's Metropolis apartment hotel, most of which has just been completed.

It will contain about 40 shops on two levels, each effectively a ground level because of the slope of the site, some office space and a few apartments on top, and two underground parking floors connected to the existing 800-vehicle parking building across Bacon Lane, which is the only part of the NZI development to be completed.

In the second stage of the Mission-Westmark project, the rooftop parking will be removed and two full parking levels added. Over the whole development, there will be about 1000 parking spaces, 400 short-term and available to the public and the rest earmarked for tower users.

The two towers to be built on top of the existing parking building - perhaps in three to five years according to Lyon, sooner if Kroon has his way - will contain 250 apartments under the present scenario.

But Lyon says the developers are also talking to "two or three" potential office tenants and one of the towers could be turned over to office use.

Lyon says the two towers would have access from different streets and would be pitched at different ranges of the apartment market. These towers would reach almost as high as Metropolis, but their development "really depends on the market after the America's Cup".

Although he figured their construction might be five years away, if the changes the partners hope to bring to the area from their first stage occur - along with changes which will come from the new Metropolis environment of hotel and restaurants - that programme would be pushed forward.

The stage facing Freyberg Place "is a very lowrise development in keeping with the High St area. It's a development we believe allows the area to breathe. As Metropolis winds down, Freyberg Place is getting more people. It's starting to become a nice environment," says Lyon.

Kroon says the work NZI completed is worth about $7.5 million for the new scheme - the door cavities are already in place to connect to the extra underground parking, perimeter piling has been completed and the engineering risk of the substructure has been taken out.

Both developers and architect Jeremy Whelan, of ASA Crone Architects - are enthusiastic about the way shop fronts can be changed without affecting the overall structure and concept.

Whelan says his brief was "to integrate the High St vernacular ... in a modern context", layering the retail levels to block out the existing parking bunker and employing a wide variety of materials, from traditional Roman street cobbles and bluestone to Sydney sandstone and granite claddings.

Lyon says he did not want to do a "me-too" building, and his work on revitalising some of the old buildings previously owned by NZI on Vulcan Lane is an example of that view.

Although the development will have far less structure over the site than the NZI plan, Lyon says the developers will raise their return by incorporating features in the design that give it sustainability. These include features which bring higher rents, such as windows that open and capability for digital and fibre-optic services.

The project will be the second in New Zealand for Australian construction giant Multiplex, which began its venture into this country with the Metropolis project and will also build Covington's Spencer on Byron hotel in Takapuna next year.

This is the biggest venture for both Mission and Westmark. Kroon and Mead pulled out of a development on Courtenay Place in Wellington this year after their partner there, the international Reading cinema group, devoted more attention to its Australian expansion.

Redevelopment of the old Gluepot, the Ponsonby Club Hotel, into apartments is one of Westmark's recent Auckland projects.

Judging by the high lunchtime and evening population along Vulcan Lane, Lyon's work in revamping tired premises such as the Occidental and Queen's Ferry pubs has been a great success.

Street artist Mark Sandman has become part of the scene. In his seven years as a fulltime artist concentrating on street scenes, he has done about 20 on Karangahape Rd, seven on Ponsonby Rd and five around the Vulcan Lane-High St area, and Lyon called him in to paint a series on the new Chancery project.