27: Civic Uses for a Civic Asset
What if we found better uses for the old Beach Road Rail Station?
Continuing the series on forgotten and under-utilised spaces in the city, some of them, like the former Beach Road Railway Station, are not so small!
In a story of missed opportunities familiar to the Auckland we have hopefully now put behind us, the former station building was cheaply converted to student accommodation after the rail services relocated to Britomart in 2003. No use was found for the large forecourt and public park out front.
Surely there can be better uses for the front of the station complex, if nothing else?
The old forecourt has a civic scale and feel to match the station building with a sweeping crescent providing covered drop off and pick up right at the front door. What a great place to establish a new terminal for inter-city and tour coaches in the city centre. This could provide for the relocation of the existing InterCity coach terminal from Hobson Street and also a bunch of other services with a need for a city centre terminus point, many of which currently congregate around the Ferry Building on Quay Street.
The site seems an ideal location to accommodate this coach activity, being a short and flat walk from the Britomart transport hub, close to rental car companies on Beach Road and with fast transport links in and out of the city via Grafton Gully. It also has plenty of space, something that should be valued at a premium in the city centre.
Throw in related or new public uses for the lobby befitting its grandeur, a revitalised public park on the disused forecourt, and future-proofing out back for Auckland-Hamilton rail services, and you start to have a recipe for making much more appropriately civic uses for what should be a real civic and historic asset in the city.
Stuart Houghton 2014
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I agree. It’s a real shame that this wasn’t used as a Vector Arena stop when the Britomart area was reconfigured. Hell, in an ideal world, the old station would have made a great concourse and entrance to a proper 60,000 seat stadium. Instead we have this mess!
Finding a good use for this building should be up there with the St James as a top civic priority.
Ha, we must have been typing at the same time!
Does the rail line still go through there or did they realign when Birtomart opened? I think they missed a trick not putting a stop for Vector. Wouldn’t have to be used all the time, only on big event nights. Much more sensible than going right past it and having to walk back…
Part of the old strand platforms can have the new emu’s stop there, just needs
a new walkway to Vector Arena.
The track work for Britomart cut this station off. You can’t stop trains there anymore, at least not if they are going to or from Britomart. You might be able to get some platforms on the eastern line quite nearby, but there is no room for the other line.
The tracks from Newmarket have been reconnected with the Strand platforms, it would require a train to back out to get to Britomart which probably wouldn’t be practical or safe.
I suppose the Strand Stabling Yard could be configured as an occasional station for events, although a bit tricky coming from the south as it connects only to the down main on the Newmarket line, and is still a long way from the Vector Arena entrance.
The Strand platforms are used by special trains (they were rebuilt for the Rugby World Cup), and were used by an Eastern-Southern direct service for a few months after Britomart opened. Access to the northern platform would be an issue, though, requiring crossing the through lines on the level. The connection to the Newmarket line is not that much of an issue, since both tracks are reversible here – it’s odd to be on a train that’s on the “wrong” line, passing another one doing the same thing!
Mike, you’re correct re bi-directional running, however this is normally only used during track maintenance etc. However, a cross-over wouldn’t be difficult to create in order to achieve normal running.
It’s in the wrong spot for an inter-city bus service.
Ideally such a service would stop within walking distance of most hotels. The railway station is out of the way and after a long bus ride tourists would be faced with the confusing task of navigating through to Auckland’s main streets.
Personally I’d like to see the building demolished and high-rise apartments built on the site but I’m willing to bet I might be in the minority on that one.
You are absolutely right! You are in the minority. It’s a beautiful building and its destruction would be nothing less than vandalism. Vandalism that we have seen far too much of in Auckland.
Good lord, demolish the train station?
It’s the same architects who designed the museum, the Dilworth building, and the Wintergardens.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gummer_and_Ford
I can’t see that location being that useful for anything – sell the land and use the money for something else.
Mathew – you are! A great building in the wrong place – wonderful exterior and lobby – the real challenge for an urbane and civilised society is to find a successful new use for such buildings and not to tear them down willy nilly. Not easy but I am sure with real application it could be done.
The old Parnell yard is reconfigured, electrified and ready to go.
Whoever on the old Auckland City council signed off the old Quay St/Beach Rd railway yards into its present layout needs to be sent onto better places as there is still the urgent problem of extra tunnels for the Britomart Train Station.
One suggestion for the old Parnell station building at the time was for a casino, to be administered by the local iwi. That idea never survived a quick phone call from Las Vegas.
What the city does need is a site for a local museum. The Auckland Museum, like Te Papa, really doesn’t quite have this facility. Wellington has the excellent local museum near the TSB Arena. In fact it is more interesting than the bewildering Te Papa.
I feel that turning the area into a bus terminal will revive the problems of the old train station and its distance from the city. It is too far to walk with luggage and taxis certainly wont take you the short distance there.
I agree with you totally; this building should be used for the public again but not for a standard museum as you are suggesting but for something a lot more interactive – try something like the ‘City Museum’ in St Louis that can only be described as a industrial art playground but cannot truly be put into words or photos. It is one of the most fun places in the world and would have a much larger appeal to the public on a more constant repeat basis.
Fully agree with you, Barney – but it’s not, and never has been, “Parnell”. That’s up the hill, where Parnell Diesel Depot (now Mainline Steam) was, and Parnell station will be.
A city with so little historic buildings its a shame it hasn’t been put to good use…
Simply removing all the parking around the square would go a long way to improving it, it’s all AT run so would be easily done.
I know that land is leasehold, but dont know who owns the land. If it is private it is a matter of time for it to be redeveloped, however that land may subject to hertiage zone.
It’s owned by Ngati Whatua, and the are indeed planning investment and development. You might have noticed their plan to use the building as the centrepiece of their Convention Centre bid, but they were outdone by John Keys proposal to sky city that they could get more gambling tables if they built it instead.
I wonder if there could be a 25k stadium in the future above the rail junction behind Vector Arena. Probably would also require a cut and cover of a realigned Stanley St.
A short term solution for the area would be to remove the carparks and improve Te Taou Reserve. There is a shortage of playgrounds in the city so this would be a good site for one.
Yeah a small playground and half size basketball court, a la silo park, would fit nicely in the carpark that borders beach road.
Wow I have been thinking about this a lot recently, perhaps because I look at the station out of my window every day. If money were not an issue my ideal solution would be to build a new underground station roughly behind the Quay st KFC and have the eastern line continue underground from Brittomart and surface closer to the causeway. If there was still a need for train storage place this underground too. Redevelop the land between the Strand and Quay Street, with more over/underpasses to cross the remaining above ground arms of the junction. have entry to the station via the strand, quay street, and the old station. By developing above the old yard you would solve some of the severance that exists between Quay street and the Strand. It would also be good to see a nice monumental set of steps leading from the reserve to the front of the old station to enhance the area. This would be part of a wider revitalisation of the area which is the eastern gate-way to the central city.
I think they should make it like a gate for the eastern side of the city. To do that you could knock a hole in the back of it to make it essentially a long corridor with entrances at either end. Then build a walking/ cycling path from the back of it out to the tamaki dr paths bringing tamaki dr right into the city for walkers/cyclists.
Then fill the inside with a museum or gallery. My preference would be a gallery of pictures of aucklands history. It would be a gallery but more alive as people are constantly moving through it.
The walking/cycling path could be continued on the city side of “the gate ” by building grand stairs from beach rd up to anzac ave. (Where the current crappy stairs are with the carpark below) and then up parliament st (take parking off one side and build cycle way and wider footpath)to the university.
I think that building could make quite a grand entrance /exit to the city and really help define where the city starts and stops.
If some clever person can find a way through the university to the victoria st linear parks that would create a great walking/cycling highway from tamaki dr through the old beach rd station up to the university and then victoria st in the heart of the city.
I once managed to get in for a look and it’s actually a pretty nice building inside, very similar to any good old European train station. Which makes me think-musee d’Orsay?
Of course there’s a bit of a story as to why the station is so stranded out on the edge of the CBD. The short version as I understand it is.
– From when rail was built in Auckland till the 1920’s the main station was where Britomart is today but on the surface.
– In late 1920’s as part of massive rail investment happened in Auckland which included Eastern Line, Otahuhu rail yards and moving station to Beach Rd.
– The intention was that it become the main railway station and that the rest of the city be served by the Morningside Deviation (the CRL) which was also being planned.
– Basically around the time the new and grand station was being finished the government pulled the pin on the Morningside deviation saying it was too expensive but that’s because they also included the costs to electrify the entire network to Helensville
– The station was left stranded from the CBD and rail use in Auckland always remained substandard.
I’ve also heard it suggested that part of the decision to move the station was the thought that the CBD would reorient itself along the flat ground of the harbours edge rather than up the Queen St valley but that didn’t happen.
Matt L: slight correction to your first point. Britomart is on the site of Auckland’s second station, built in 1885 – the original station (1873-1885) was on the sea side of Quay St, about opposite Countdown.
As noted above, this is owned by Ngati Whatua and was given to them as part of their settlement with the Crown. They are conscious of the need to get the best use from this.
My question would be: how do we get the best from the triangle of land between the port, the future Parnell Station, and Beach Road? This place sits in the middle, bounded by a university, a stadium, a harbour, an inner burb, and a park. Making this area connect will make the redevelopment of this building easier and more successful.
Wow dare I say it but the location of this building is a… train wreck!
600-800m from Britomart, Queen St and the Ferries, such an awkward distance left to cover (by foot or bus).
Then of course there is its orientation – if you were to use it for Inter-City trains would they come up the Eastern line? But would they then have to cross the Southern line to get into the back of the building!?!?! arrgh.
Seems like one of those problems where if you were starting from scratch it would have no place but because of its legacy it is tantalising.
In the future probably good for Britomart’s capacity to have it operational.
Also could future light rail / tram be run from “Auckland station / Vector to Wynyard Quarter via Beach Rd / Quay St..?
The green link bus will do exactly that.
The placement of the Station there was always an enormous failure. In particular for intra city travel, as Matt points out above, as the completion of the planned underground city route that justified moving the main station away from Queen St never happened. Because of cost, of course.
Interestingly there was a secondary solution that was advanced but also never built, and that was a cheaper terminating underground branch or extension from the new station to Victoria St. Ever wondered why there is a Council owned parking building on the corner of Vic, High, and Kitchener? That’s because that was to be the site of the city branch terminus station served by a tunnel under the Albert Park hill.
Post war as part of the all-in bet on driving it was decided to use the site for car storage. Extended further in the 80s or 90s. The earlier more elegant part of the parking building was designed by Tibor Donner the Hungarian born architect of the Parnell and Pt Erin Baths, The Civic Admin building, and the Ellen Melville memorial Hall of Freyberg Square. Now it is just one of the underpriced parking assets of AT.
I lived there when it first reopened in 2000, and I felt privileged to do so. The building is stunning, and worked well as student accommodation and a mix of serviced apartments. There were some problems with heating and the refit was leaky, as I understand it. The building had a really vibrant resident community, with the entrance coming alive in the evenings with both residents and visitors, a cafe/dining area, shared cooking and laundry areas, and tv rooms (before everyone had laptops and tablets) that created yet more communal spaces. The biggest problem was the lack of nearby shops. The Link stopped on Beach Rd though, providing transport to the Vic Park New World. Otherwise it was a walk to Parnell for veges, or the Deka on Queen St.
Could it used as a primary/intermediate school for the inner city, since there isn’t a public one in the cbd?
Fantastic idea. Has everything – scale, location, accessibility by bus and bike.
And a suitable gym/assembly hall just next door!
Brilliant.