Joy at mall’s demise
Wainuiomata’s drab and rundown shopping mall cannot come down quick enough, locals say.
Redevelopment plans for the Wainuiomata Shopping Centre were revealed yesterday after Stuff reported the mall would be demolished and replaced with a new Countdown supermarket, a refurbished car park and new retail spaces.
The supermarket will cover 3600 square metres and will feature an in-store pharmacy, as well as wider aisles.
Countdown’s general manager of property, Adrian Walker, said construction was earmarked to begin at the end of next year. The new supermarket would take about a year to complete with the existing supermarket continuing to trade throughout.
The proposed redevelopment would also include a range of tenants, as well as a centralised connection through the site connecting Queen St and The Strand, Walker said.
Once the pride of the Lower Hutt suburb, in recent years retailers have abandoned Wainuiomata’s mall in droves. The last four remaining tenants include Coin Saver and a bakery.
Locals spoken to yesterday agreed the last straw for the mall was when The Warehouse pulled out in 2016.
Heather Hughes could not hide her delight when shown an image of the new design.
‘‘I think everyone will thrilled by the news.’’ be
She moved to Wainuiomata in 1971 and said the mall was the place to be on a Friday night.
Sylvia Judge, a Wainuiomata resident of 23 years, said it had been sad watching the mall steadily decline.
‘‘We used to have a Farmers, Hannahs, a carpet shop with flooring, we had it all.’’
Lynda Trask said she hoped the new facility would breathe life back into local retailing.
‘‘It is a pain in the backside having to go to Lower Hutt.’’
Craig Cooley said it would be sad to see the existing mall go. But with so few shops left, its demise was inevitable.
‘‘The biggest loss was when they let The Warehouse go. If they could get The Warehouse back that would be cool.’’ An engineering firm has claimed Wellington City Council ignored design risks in permitting the now quake-damaged BNZ building.
Spencer Holmes says it first raised the alarm about the design of the waterfront office building in 2006, a decade before it would be irreparably damaged in the Kaiko¯ ura quake.
The firm claims concerns about the seismic design of the building’s floors were not addressed, after they were specified in a review of design firm Beca’s plans.
Spencer Holmes recommended significant design changes on February 9, 2007, but two weeks later the building consent was granted.
The allegations were sent in a letter from Spencer Holmes director Jon Devine to council chief Kevin Lavery last week, released under the Official Information Act.
Devine said consent was issued ‘‘contrary to the advice of [Spencer Holmes]’’.
Wellington City Council denied the allegations and considered the concerns resolved at the time, affirmed by an independent engineer’s review of the
‘‘We find this remarkable and ethically substandard.’’ Jon Devine, Spencer Holmes
building’s consent earlier this year.
‘‘The city council stands by its decision to approve the building consents relating to Harbour Quays,’’ spokesman Richard MacLean said.
‘‘We have taken the time to go back and review our records and we have confirmed factual inaccuracies in the letter from Mr Devine at Spencer Holmes. We will be discussing these with Spencer Holmes directly.’’
Wellington City Council declined a request for an interview.
Devine said the firm was not contacted by the unnamed independent engineer which contacted the review. ‘‘We find this remarkable and ethically substandard.’’
Beca and Spencer Holmes did not respond to requests for comment.
The BNZ building sustained damage in a 2013 earthquake but it was irreparably damaged in the magnitude 7.8 Kaiko¯ ura quake in 2016.