Fresh ideas for Auckland's CBD

Auckland’s road-cone-plagued and allegedly crime-infested central business district, or CBD, has been deluged by gloomy headlines.

As the name implies, the area of 433 hectares – bounded by the Waitematā Harbour in the north, Parnell in the east, Grafton in the southeast, Mt Eden in the south, Newton in the southwest and Freemans Bay in the west – is the city’s commercial heart.

Contained within it are thousands of businesses employing tens of thousands of people, and Auckland’s biggest concentration of shops.

But to some – particularly retailers and hospitality businesses – the heart of the city is on life support, a condition exacerbated by Covid. To others, the CBD is in a predictable period of flux, the result of which will be a more vibrant city.

What’s certain is Auckland’s CBD is vital for the region and the country. It’s the location of key educational and cultural institutions, including the University of Auckland and Auckland University of Technology, Auckland Museum, Auckland Art Gallery and the Central City Library.

Downtown’s Waitematā Station, formerly Britomart, is the city’s transport hub that’s soon to be much busier when the City Rail Link project ends. Up the hill in Grafton is Auckland City Hospital, the country’s biggest.

Commercial and cultural importance aside, the number of people with a home address in the central city has surged in recent decades, reflected in Auckland Council’s preference for the term ‘city centre’ rather than ‘CBD’ to describe the area.

Today, it has about 38,500 residents, more than double the number of two decades ago, roughly a quarter of whom are students.

Figures from economics consultancy Infometrics indicate that in 2023, the city centre’s population had a higher proportion of those of working age (15–64) when compared with New Zealand overall, and lower proportions of both young people (0–14) and those aged 65 or older.

The City Rail Link build and associated disruption, which still has about a year to run, is a key triggering feature of life in the big city. With what some might consider masterful understatement, regional transport overseer Auckland Transport says on its website, “If you visit the city centre you will know that construction has changed the way vehicles, pedestrians and cyclists move around”. Or don’t move around, many people would argue.

For hard-hit businesses, the result has been a crippling reduction in foot traffic. In July, the owner of Wellesley Street’s Remedy Cafe told RNZ he wondered if the shop’s days were numbered as he contemplated 18 months’ more work in the street. Around the corner on Queen Street, 144-year-old department store Smith & Caughey’s will downsize in the new year.

Traffic management – a code everyone now knows means orange cones galore – will remain in the vicinity of the new Te Waihorotiu (Wellesley Street) and Karanga-a-Hape (K’ Road) railway stations as the job wraps up towards the end of 2025.

Where, then, to find relief from the city centre’s downbeat vibe? Aucklanders might take heart from the fact that according to some global measures the city actually stacks up pretty well. An international comparison by The Economist magazine, for example, has ranked Auckland in the top ten of the world’s most liveable cities in all of the last ten of its annual surveys, judged on stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education and infrastructure. Covid commission of inquiry take note: during the 2021 pandemic peak, Auckland topped The Economist list. So, it’s not all doom and gloom.

Talking about an evolution

Jenny Larking, head of Auckland Council’s city centre programmes and a University of Auckland Bachelor of Architecture alumna, thinks decline – and trying to turn back the clock – is the wrong way to characterise what’s happening in the city centre.

“To me, it’s about the next stage of the city centre’s evolution. We’re seeing a global trend towards a different way of working and shopping that hasn’t been created by Covid, but that Covid has accelerated – it was always coming.

“So, it’s not so much about decline as being part and parcel of a societal shift.”

Rather than a CBD populated by office workers, she foresees one that is the centre for a high value-add economy of technology and professional services businesses that want to be in close proximity to each other to benefit from agglomeration and trust building.

“I think the city centre needs to offer that and create more emphasis for gathering and entertainment and experience rather than being dependent purely on the need to be in the office.”

Work to that end is happening apace and, according to Jenny, is being well received. One milestone was the completion in July of Waimahara, a light and sound art installation that is part of the revitalisation of Myers Park.

“We’re getting fantastic feedback,” says Jenny, who oversaw the park project.

Waimahara, by Ngāti Whātua ringatoi (artist) Graham Tipene, in the Mayoral Drive underpass at the northern end of the park, responds when triggered by the singing of particular waiata. Passersby can learn the purpose-written waiata ‘Waimahara’ and ‘Waiora’ using QR codes that link to online recordings of the songs.

Graham, whose iwi affiliations also include Ngāti Manu, Ngāti Kahu, Ngāti Hine and Ngāti Hauā, says it’s “an awesome responsibility” coming up with Waimahara and designs for other artworks around Te Waihorotiu CRL station.

“What we’re doing is creating for generations we may never meet – that’s the sort of thinking that is going into it,” he says.

Jenny says Te Hā Noa Victoria Street linear park is another key element of the council’s city‑centre masterplan, featuring new planting for a green link between Albert and Victoria parks, along with artworks.

“The idea is that it creates a respite for people entering and exiting the new station,” says Jenny.

Back to nature

That’s right up urban designer Zoë Avery’s alley. The associate director of design in the University’s School of Architecture and Planning is a believer in nature as an integral part of the city.

“Nature should be woven into the very fabric of our cities. Green spaces foster social interaction, promote active lifestyles and enhance the appeal of urban centres.”

And it needn’t strain the city coffers, says Zoë.

“It can be achieved with relatively low cost interventions, like pocket parks and green roofs.”

Green, or ‘living’, roofs should be mandated to help absorb the heavy rains increasingly hitting the city. CBD runoff contributed to the inability to swim at Auckland beaches for a quarter of last summer, says Zoë.

She also advocates improving pedestrian and cycling infrastructure to make the central city easier to get to, and more appealing for residents, workers and visitors.

“Giving people choices and accessible spaces has been proven to work well. The addition of pedestrian-only zones and adding bike lanes is key.”

More ambitiously, Zoë says daylighting (the term for getting waterways flowing again) the Waihorotiu stream that flowed down Queen Street until around the mid-1800s, and transforming Queen Street into a bush walk could restore a sense of how Auckland was in pre-colonial times.

“It would take significant investment and careful planning, but the unique blend of historic cultural values and urban revitalisation would help create a vibrant and sustainable city centre.”

It’s an idea that resonates powerfully with Graham, whose inspiration for Waimahara was the Waihorotiu.

“For me personally, absolutely – to bring back those historic waterways that meant so much in the old days is just on a wish-list level,” he says.

Out of office

For Zoë’s colleague Bill McKay, a senior lecturer in the School of Architecture and Planning, the conversion of commercial buildings into residential is the best bet for reviving the CBD.

When workplaces emptied out during Covid lockdowns, city centre offices were deserted. With the virus panic now over, it’s still not quite business as usual for many employers.

In many instances, says Bill, former office dwellers have decided they’d rather work from home, leaving their cubicles unoccupied.

“There’s a trend away from big offices, plus a move by those that still need them to leave Queen Street for flasher buildings in more fashionable areas. That’s an opportunity to take empty office buildings and turn them into apartments.”

Conversions done well – he knows of several, including the World War I-era Guardian Trust building on Queen Street – can create quality living spaces.

“I think there’s demand, particularly from students and young people looking to get on the property ladder.”

Empty-nesters are also a prime market for lock-and-leave CBD dwellings.

When Bill was a student in the city in the early 1980s, fewer than 1,000 people lived in the CBD, and he can see apartment conversions bringing about a similar population explosion from today’s 38,500 to double that in a decade.

Art of attraction

If nature is one way of improving urban liveability and attracting people, nourishing their appetite for cultural experiences is another.

Pianist Dr Sarah Watkins, a senior lecturer at the University’s School of Music, graduate of New York’s Juilliard School and NZTrio founding member, says performances in public places can help counter the emptying-out of city centres, which she has sensed as contributing to a “slightly lost feeling” in Queen Street and downtown Auckland.

Concerts can be spontaneous – as when people passing a street piano in Wynyard Quarter sit down and play – or organised, as during the annual Auckland Arts Festival.

“From my experience, downtown Auckland has been at its most energised during recent arts festivals, with numerous performances in outdoor public spaces and a real audience buzz. It can’t really happen year round, but it offers a glimpse of what a vibrant city might feel like and the vital contribution the arts can make.”

Music isn’t the only drawcard. Sarah is also struck by Waimahara as a great example “of musicians and artists engaging with the public in unexpected ways”. Another example, she says, was Opera in the Strand– a NZ Music Month collaboration in May between the New Zealand Opera School and Te Pae Kōkako the Aotearoa New Zealand Opera Studio in the Strand Arcade.

Where the heart is

The city centre’s charms may be lost on some people.

But Helen Robinson, leader of Auckland City Mission – Te Tāpui Atawhai, which calls the CBD home, isn’t one of them.

The University of Auckland Master of Social and Community Leadership alumna has no trouble tapping into the positivity reflected in The Economist’s liveability survey. She says: “I want to acknowledge how good Auckland city is to us,” insisting she is “not being Pollyanna-ish”.

For more than a century, the mission has provided support to those in greatest need. Now, with its 80-apartment HomeGround building on Hobson Street and a leased property off Karangahape Road, it also offers permanent housing.

The organisation is supported by businesses, Auckland Council, government agencies and individuals.

That support exemplifies the side of Auckland that Helen says deserves headlines.

Her plea is that the people who populate the CBD continue to show “compassion, curiosity and empathy” for those around them. And she counsels those businesses fed up with the aftermath of Covid and the rail-link disruption to look forward to more footfalls in the city in the future.

“I think the city gets a bad rap. But the promise of what tomorrow may bring isn’t far away,” she says.