Public Address | Cafe | Hard News: The Golden Mile

nzlemming

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 10:32:44 +1200

Julie-Anne is making huge strides. Gareth did his best in the last term (and that was pretty damn good) but he was spread to thin. With more MPs, the Greens are having a solid impact. Brownlee looked like a big incompetent bully in the House this week.

Sacha

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 09:27:12 +1200

Remember two train tracks equals 10 motorway lanes

Julie-Anne Genter made that point in Parliament this week. Needs to be repeated and understood widely. And clowns like Brownlee and Joyce not allowed to peddle blatant lies without prompt and continuing challenge.

Patrick Reynolds

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 09:06:50 +1200

Well Queen St is no urban centre but rather a lid on a creek turned into a traffic sewer. It has improved considerably through the simple addition of humans- I can remember its lowest points around the early 90s- and the great and increasing volumes of people, lead by the…

Sacha

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 12:14:39 +1200

"Where's the pineapple?"

teeworthy

Jackie Clark

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 12:04:40 +1200

Oh yes, I too miss Cook St market. Funnily enough, I went to this body/mind/spirit fair (well, one tiny room to be honest) in the weekend, and it smelled just like Cook St market used to. Ah, patchouli! Ah, incense!

nzlemming

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 10:01:12 +1200

Queen St has about thirty cheap delicious restaurants the cuisine of which my grandmother may have called oriental.

Heh. I remember the first time I ordered sweet and sour pork in a restaurant and this pink goo arrived and I thought "this isn't how my mother makes it" followed by…

Ian Dalziel

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 07:37:53 +1200

faux dough shopping…

I miss the old Cook Street Market
and that kind of shopping precinct
(and yes with the Six Month Club
still upstairs would be nice…)

Victoria park mkt never really got that
market / people ambience right…
– cities need bazaars
the bizarrer the better…

chchch inner…

Samuel Scott

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 21:06:47 +1200

Newmarket does have Little & Friday. Which is great.

Queen St has about thirty cheap delicious restaurants the cuisine of which my grandmother may have called oriental. This is very great.

Steve Barnes

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 16:06:21 +1200

Right. Those maps.
If you like you can download the .xcf file (for GIMP) or psd file (for Photoshop) Here
Now you should be able to actuate the transparency.
Crossing fingers again.

Sacha

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 15:19:01 +1200

nice work. the reclamation is clear too.

Sacha

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 15:18:24 +1200

The nooks and crannies and back streets of a city are generally the bits where cool things happen anyway

Melbourne's laneways seem to bear that out.

Steve Barnes

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 14:33:03 +1200

Santa?

LOL

Michael Stevens

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 14:30:47 +1200

How I wish we had those two squares laid out in that plan.

I walk around Queen St and the area a lot, and I like it. Yes it's shabby in places, but it's also vibrant and cosmopolitan. If it were lined with Chanel/Gucci/Prada or similar stores from the Town…

Ana Simkiss

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 14:09:58 +1200

I think quality rather than size is the only justifiable complaint that Brewer may have. Nothing at all wrong with small shops as amply demonstrated by O'Connell St, Vulcan Lane and (now sadly emptying) High St. This incidentally seems to be what Newmarket is trying to emulate in their little…

Ray Gilbert

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 13:36:07 +1200

The other time I went there was to visit someone who lived upstairs.

Santa?

Sacha

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 12:46:57 +1200

I reckon turbo should be in there somewhere – makes the whole thing run faster and stronger. Spins around in the hub of the network. Also resonates with petrolheads. :)

Steve Barnes

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 12:29:20 +1200

And this.
The plan isn't exactly to scale so it ain't easy to line up all parts at the same time.

Matthew Poole

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 12:20:13 +1200

It's the missing link :P
There's no good word, really, if one is seeking to avoid having to say more than one word. However, "loop" has its own connotations which are far more destructive to the project's image than any shortcomings of "link".

Steve Barnes

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 12:07:37 +1200

Ok, here's a jpg. Unfortunately jpg will not handle transparency but I think you can get a general idea from this.

Sacha

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 11:57:43 +1200

Even 'link' doesn't really cut it, as we've discussed before. Has to be a better way to express the region-wide benefits of this missing part of the rail network jigsaw.

Sacha

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 11:55:56 +1200

Exactly. Proceeding without the cooperation of private owners often means an expensive buyout (like KiwiRail) and increased rates or debt. You can guess which faction in Councils tends to oppose that answer.

Or there could be firmer regulations about being a responsible building owner. Those can only be made by…

JacksonP

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 11:37:55 +1200

Crossed fingers are not up to expectations...
As you were.

Keep trying, I'd be fascinated to see it.

Matthew Poole

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 11:30:51 +1200

CBD rail loop

Link, please, not loop. It's not needed so that trains can go in circles.

Steve Barnes

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 11:21:24 +1200

I'm not sure if this will work but this is an overlay of Google maps over the old plan of Auckland. I used Gimp, it may work with photoshop.
The Google image is a transparent overlay and you should be able to adjust that.
Fingers crossed...
ETA
Crossed fingers are…

Craig Ranapia

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 09:25:25 +1200

Although, to be fair to the Council, it can take surreal amounts of time, money and brute persistence to take on property owners whose approach to maintenance is "malign neglect". If I was being entirely cynical, it isn't entirely without precedent for owners to run down listed buildings (and crying…

Joe Wylie

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 09:05:03 +1200

It's really worth a look. Although I'm glad the name New Ulster didn't catch on.
Interesting how of the four "quadrants" shown there, Waterloo Quadrant actually came to be, though in a rather compromised shape.

Craig Ranapia

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 08:57:29 +1200

only viable deal on the table however was the one that the govt said no to.

OK, Sacha, we'll blame the Government for every thing up to and including the wicked bad cramps I've been having lately. But it seems for years Auckland City's only "viable" solution for the St…

JacksonP

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 08:29:42 +1200

I really don't know what they were thinking ther

Build a ghetto and wait for the inevitable?

JacksonP

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 08:27:33 +1200

Wow. Imagine skateboarding from the Circus down to Queen St along Victoria St. That's a good 30 metre drop.

Seems to me this has the fountain in Albert Park at the centre of everything. Do you think they knew it was on a hill? Looks like a flat earth plan…

Martin Lindberg

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 08:15:47 +1200

a bigger version of the original plan

Wow. Imagine skateboarding from the Circus down to Queen St along Victoria St. That's a good 30 metre drop.

Russell Brown

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 08:07:53 +1200

Some of you won't have seen the post since I updated it with a link to a bigger version of the original plan.

It's really worth a look. Although I'm glad the name New Ulster didn't catch on.

Sacha

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 00:47:25 +1200

Councils (and the owners)

seems fair. only viable deal on the table however was the one that the govt said no to.

Sacha

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 00:46:47 +1200

Sasha

Craig Ranapia

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 23:47:11 +1200

let's be clear where the responsibility lies.

Sasha: I'll hold successive Councils (and the owners) fully responsible for the state of the Saint James. Sorry if "please break with tradition and learn something from history" was atypically obscure on the subject because the damn place has been derelict for almost…

Sacha

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 23:11:05 +1200

I really don't know what they were thinking there

Martin Lindberg

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 23:09:25 +1200

A station at Aotea Square will do wonders for local retail, methinks.

Let's hope it would work better than the seriously depressing square that's attached to the Newmarket Station.

Sacha

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 23:08:54 +1200

The way to change an area is to allow and encourage interesting things to happen

Council has a key role in allowing and encouraging. By law it must balance the interests of various parties including residents, businesses, future citizens and the sustainability of the natural and built environments we all…

Steve Barnes

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 22:56:43 +1200

The phrase “World class city centre” is part of the meaningless cheer leader type bollocks that Len Browne tends to bang on about.
The way to change an area is to allow and encourage interesting things to happen, good bars and cafés, studio space, workshops for artisans, places for people…

Keir Leslie

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 22:51:59 +1200

Cuba St is the way it is because all the mainstream shopping migrated to the Lambton Quay area, and the resulting harder-to-let property attracted interesting shops and businesses. No council ever decided it was time to create an “artistic quarter”.

The council did plan a motorway through the area, and…

DexterX

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 22:01:11 +1200

I spend a lot of time in Newmarket – it too has small retail micro-shops – it has a mix of micro shops, high-end retail, malls, appliance outlet stores and cinema – it is more mixed than high end.

Queen Street is a more fun than it used to be…

Sacha

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 21:24:03 +1200

A station at Aotea Square will do wonders for local retail, methinks.

And Transportblog obliges with a post about exactly that station, including some illustrations. Coverage catchment looks useful.

Dave Waugh

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 20:59:31 +1200

Whoops... I'd like to correct my earlier post.
That'd be $1k sqm not $10k.
Sorry.

Mikaere Curtis

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 20:51:32 +1200

I work in Albert St, so spend a bit of time in Queen St during business hours. The impression I get is that the change in retail focus and size is partly in response to the domiciliary demographic in the CBD; lots of food compared to when I was at…

Rich of Observationz

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 20:24:32 +1200

It strikes me that the "texture" (for want of a better word) of suburbs and districts isn't something that's in the gift of local council planners. That's probably a good thing.

Cuba St is the way it is because all the mainstream shopping migrated to the Lambton Quay area, and…

Will de Cleene

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 18:42:47 +1200

Queen St has never been the same since they moved The White Lady. They took a chainsaw to owner operators and installed chain stores. And every time I go to Newmarket, I see a cheap set to guerilla film a Stepford Wives remake.

Steve Barnes

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 17:43:32 +1200

Has it changed much in the last 11-12 years? When I last visited AKL for the Armageddon Expo maybe around 2007, I didn’t feel all that threatened come night time

I should have pointed out that that article was from Sunday Nov 12, 2000.
It has no byline, I can…

Sacha

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 17:27:21 +1200

and the Ponsonby tram loop is a red herring courtesy of the suburb's MP. Nowhere near the usage base to make it viable compared with buses.

Sacha

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 17:25:00 +1200

but Len

He and his organisation were behind the proposal that featured the St James. Government chose SkyCity's bid for our national convention centre instead – let's be clear where the responsibility lies.

Craig Ranapia

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 16:52:35 +1200

I have my fingers crossed for the restoration of the St James Theatre, as this was a terrific live music venue, and I used to love going to gigs there.

Sorry for sounding like a broken record on the subject, but Len? If you’re lurking, commissioning another report that says…

Dave Waugh

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 16:48:50 +1200

I can't help but wonder if the small shops is a result in part from the insanely high rents charged on retail space with high foot traffic counts?
Difficult to cover the cost of rent on larger spaces.
I'm not sure what Q street rents are but it can't be…

Kumara Republic

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 16:47:22 +1200

Especially after they have read this...
Nights of fear and loathing – Queen St on a Friday night

Has it changed much in the last 11-12 years? When I last visited AKL for the Armageddon Expo maybe around 2007, I didn't feel all that threatened come night time, and the [[http://www.rainbowhotel.co.nz|Rainbow…

Gareth Ward

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 16:42:06 +1200

Just because these tiny shops selling tat aren't vanilla-chain-store-commerce doesn't make them Cuba Street. For a supposed heart of the city, which we've all spent many many millions on, it would be great if we had developed a vibrant, useful, attracting place. I doubt Cr Brewer is the man to…

Sacha

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 16:05:05 +1200

tram loop

Buses fine in the meantime. Scale not really right for pedestrians in Queen St though – rather they got through-traffic out of High St and gave pedestrians priority across Victoria, Wellesley etc to link Aotea/education precinct all the way down to waterfront.

Simon Bennett

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 16:01:19 +1200

A really adventurous council might consider closing Queen Street to traffic. Same for Ponsonby Road.

Then a tram loop put in place.

Bart Janssen

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 15:58:46 +1200

It doesn't take long in Newmarket to see that being a retailer in the self proclaimed golden mile is not an easy row to hoe. Back street shops open up presumably because the lease is cheaper on the back street. Maintaining a main street medium sized store seems to require…

JacksonP

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 15:58:12 +1200

Fair enough. I won't derail further.

Would it be inappropriate to revisit the Murray Cammick post Flash Cars? Following on from Steve's comment above.

Sacha

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 15:53:35 +1200

the CBD and inner suburbs was a gift. but I know what you mean elsewhere.

JacksonP

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 15:52:34 +1200

donated

Posted without comment. ;-)

Sacha

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 15:49:31 +1200

the Natives

otherwise known as those who donated all the land

JacksonP

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 15:48:00 +1200

That map is great, and also rather... colonial?

"Reserved for a church and for the general use of the Natives."

Steve Barnes

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 15:29:10 +1200

Bring back the Friday Night Cruising I say.
There is more to Queen Street than Retail.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdb3MUT6-UI
But we cant have stuff like that happening, it might frighten the middle Class.
Especially after they have read this...
[[http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=159578 | Nights of fear and loathing – Queen St on a…

Martin Lindberg

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 15:28:01 +1200

If Cr Brewer had his way, Queen St would probably look like just another cut-and-paste shopping mall minus the roofing. I’d have Cuba Street over that any day.

Well quite, but Queen St has nothing in common with Cuba St. I just see a Queen St full of souvenir-shops. There…

Simon Lyall

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 15:25:19 +1200

I would have thought the number of media to high end retailers in Queen St (especially below Victoria St) was pretty good.

The major problem I would have is actually the banks and similar (such as Delottes) which take a large pieces of frontage with one door, boring glass and…

Paul Webber

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 15:18:59 +1200

the city’s original, elegant east-west plan, with its spectacular concentric circles.

So that's why Waterloo Quadrant is not a Street or a Road or an Avenue. It was supposed to be a sector equal to one quarter of a circle. Cool old factiod discovered. Thanks RB.

Sacha

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 15:18:50 +1200

there’s an awful lot of empty “medium to large” retail space

Perhaps our commercial property market has been distorted by lack of capital gains tax like residential?

Sacha

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 15:17:03 +1200

I have my fingers crossed for the restoration of the St James Theatre, as this was a terrific live music venue, and I used to love going to gigs there.

Same. And cosying up to SkyCity removes the one major prospect of restoring the St James as part of a…

Craig Ranapia

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 15:05:18 +1200

No offence, but in a lot of ways, Newmarket sucks.

I stopped going to Newmarket regularly when The Downlow Concept moved from Khyber Pass Road to Halsey Street but since the Film Society moved to the Rialto this season I’m back… And, boy, it’s hard to miss there’s an awful…

Simon Bennett

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 15:04:11 +1200

People will only come somewhere like Queen Street to shop if it offers retail experiences that are unique, as opposed to the ubiquitous chain store experiences that can be found in any mall – where parking is free, punters feel 'safe' and exercise required is minimal.

To my mind Queen…

Steve Barnes

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 15:02:51 +1200

“And I do feel bound to note that the last time I set foot in a big, fancy Queen Street store – Smith & Caughey, to browse the cookware in its sale – I felt very uncomfortable about being shadowed around as if I were a shoplifter.”
I have only been…

Simon Grigg

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 14:57:00 +1200

Ikea does indeed have only one store for the 20 million-odd people of Beijing

Same for the 15m in Bangkok. And it's also tapped into the Asian distribution networks so supply isn't an issue. 5 million people spread across two islands is not an attractive customer base for stores like…

nzlemming

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 14:52:43 +1200

No offence, but in a lot of ways, Newmarket sucks.

As a visitor only, these days, I'd agree. And I'd posit that most of the reason for that is people like Brewer with their "vision" of what shopping ought to be. Perhaps we should have a whip round and buy…

Public Address

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 14:52:43 +1200

Discussion from blog post.