Meet the King Canute of Auckland:
King Canute — you could call Eric van Essen that because he has headed the $73 million project to hold back the sea from Auckland’s CBD. Yet Auckland Transport’s downtown programme director gives the kudos to the team who worked on the 600m long stretch.
“The seawall is an incredible achievement given the fact it’s been a long time in the planning and to have this significant investment completed.
“It strengthens Quay St for the next 100 years,” he said.
“It is quite a unique juncture between ferries, rail and buses, all within 100m of one another, so you’ve got a busy confluence of movement and that’s where we need to provide additional space for people.
“Having that additional footpath space is vitally important.”
That ever forceful sea: construction companies digging near the waterfront fight its power with steel and concrete for basements and underground carparks.
The basement of one commercial office block on Queen St was said to flood continually to the point where parts are now abandoned.
Auckland CBD’s seawall protects New Zealand’s most intensely populated office worker area, yet the structure was weak and degraded.
Around 10,000 people work in buildings on the two blocks between Quay St, Lower Albert St, Customs St and more than 2000 are in the new $1 billion PwC Tower at Commercial Bay.
Without the seawall, large parts of that CBD would have been underwater.
To protect Quay St and the services that run beneath it, seismic strengthening of that 100-year-old seawall was needed in the stretch from Princes Wharf and Marsden Wharf. Now that those foundations have been sorted, van Essen said the area will be protected for the next 100 years.
The seawall forms the harbour edge of a historic land reclamation, which supports Quay St and services beneath the road corridor.
The first sections of this reclamation were built between 1879 and 1886 along what is now Quay St west of Britomart and also east of Britomart parallel to Beach Rd.
Subsequent sections were added after the turn of the 20th century.
The strengthening process was designed to add resilience to a one-in2500-year event or a 6.5 magnitude earthquake.
It also allowed for a sea-level rise up to 1m during 100 years and was in line with climate change guidelines and predictions, he said.
An initial assessment of the seawall was carried out in 2012.
Divers then did annual monitoring to ensure nothing more urgent needed attention till the work started, van Essen said.
The work was finished in midJanuary, slightly ahead of schedule.
Last month, Van Essen told the Herald the job had been done for less money and in a slightly shorter time than initially envisaged.
“My understanding is that we’re coming in under budget as well,” he said.
Final costs are yet to be confirmed but a $1m to $2m saving on the original $75m budget is anticipated.
But disruption continues in the area where it was once hoped work would be finished in time to showcase the city during the America’s Cup.
The seawall is an incredible achievement given the fact it’s been a long time in the planning . . . It strengthens Quay St for the next 100 years.
Work is being carried out on six projects in the downtown area, not just the seawall.
Those six projects are the seawall, Galway St enhancement, Lower Albert St bus interchange, Te Wa¯nanga [a tidal shelf over water for people to gather near the Ferry Terminal], the ferry basin redevelopment with six new berths on the west side of Queen’s Wharf, and, the Quay St enhancement which squeezes it from four lanes down to two lanes at one point.
Van Essen acknowledges the length of time all six are taking to conclude.
“We were due to finish all six projects for the America’s Cup under the original plan which was to have all major works complete by 2020 with minor works complete by early 2021.
“But the revised programme is to have all works finished in the area by the end of April and minor works finished by May or June.”
The seawall completion was a milestone and a major step forward in finishing work in the area.
We chatted to this tide-fighter about his work.