A SENSE OF ENGAGEMENT

A new luxury apartment tower at the heart of a downtown transformation centred on pedestrian-friendly streets.

Set to be the city’s tallest residential tower – topping out at 57 storeys – The Pacifica will take centre stage above the rapidly smartening-up Fort Street precinct.

The tower (designed by Jaiman Atkins of Plus Architecture, profiled on p.31) includes 54 levels of apartments, a 35-suite boutique hotel, restaurant, laneway cafe and retail, as well as a residents’ library, lounge, cinema and community terrace.

The building has been designed around the view: with the air-rights of neighbouring Achilles House secured, residents will keep their sea views through floor-toceiling windows.

At ground level, the tower will offer a new sense of engagement with a reinvigorated city centre. The Pacifica laneway between Gore and Commerce Streets will beef up a growing network of pedestrian-friendly streets from Customs Street back south through the city.

For residents, this means the heritage blocks of Britomart and around High Street are on their doorstep. Stroll up Fort Lane, with its cobbled Imperial Lane café and the award-winning Cassia tucked down beside the street. The shared pavements of Fort Street, Jean Batten Place and the charming Victorian blocks of O’Connell Street link through to Freyburg Place and Chancery.

The glass skyscrapers on Shortland Street are nearby and pedestrians can stop in at the lobbies of the Vero building for the best public collection of contemporary New Zealand art outside a gallery. Pieces by Ralph Hotere and Bill Culbert, Elizabeth Thompson, Gretchen Albrecht, Gavin Chilcott and John Reynolds fill the lobby and café.

Just a walk up the block are the regularly rotating shows at Gus Fisher Gallery, or wander a few more blocks to the Art Gallery and private galleries of Lorne and Kitchener Streets. Pocket parks at Emily Place or the lush green of Albert Park are only minutes away.