New hope for threatened heritage
Developers working to breathe new life into Christchurch’s old spaces are bringing the city’s heritage back from the brink, writes Liz McDonald.
Could Christchurch be the world’s most liveable city? That’s the aim of property developer Box 112 as it finishes revamping yet another old building so new businesses can move in.
Since launching less than five years ago, the company has hatched about 20 projects repurposing old heritage or industrial sites in the city.
The properties include office, hospitality and retail buildings, childcare centres and a hotel.
Box 112’s latest project is The Welder, a hub for about 18 wellnessthemed tenants in a complex of old industrial buildings at the southern end of the central city.
Due to open in early November, The Welder is intended to attract the custom of city-dwellers and workers, as well as help enliven the area for other businesses.
Like several other Welles St buildings the company has taken on, The Welder is aimed at catering for residents such as those in the new Atlas Quarter apartment complex built as part of the Government-led rebuild.
The Atlas site was once owned by developer Dave Henderson, who first identified the old industrial district as ripe for mixed-use development.
Box 112 director James Stringer says the area has a lot to offer.
‘‘These old industrial buildings
are very authentic. They are a really nice, human scale, not too big, and they have a lot of character.
‘‘Buildings like that are increasingly rare in Christchurch, especially in the central city. They have brick walls, timber, steel beams, and tenants appreciate that.’’
Stringer says their business is all about the tenants, who are helping create a neighbourhood by providing services that residents want.
‘‘They all build off each other. If they are a success, then we are all successful.’’
Rather than opting for big name or corporate tenants, the developers have so far chosen local and national, artisan-type businesses.
Those moving into The Welder include unpackaged food suppliers GoodFor, plant-based food company Two Raw Sisters, foodies Greenroots Juicery, Grizzly Baked Goods, Great Pastry Shop, and two new eateries from the operators of Sister Kong, plus health club O-Studio.
Nearby tenants in the company’s other Welles St developments include daytime and nighttime hospitality spots and a childcare centre. At the end of the street is the new Yoobee Colleges campus for 700 tertiary students.
‘‘We are very prescriptive and very particular about the tenants we put in our buildings. We want to make sure they are complementary, and create opportunities for each other.’’
On Welles St, that desire to shape the neighbourhood also led the company to buy the ground floor street frontage of Atlas Quarter so it can decide who moves in.
The company took a similar approach to creating a hub of likeminded tenants when it filled The Yard, an old printhouse around the corner on St Asaph St. The building’s hospitality and office tenants will serve workers in the nearby justice and emergency services precinct, families from the new Ao Tawhiti school next door, and in a new apartment building planned on the block.
Box 112 first came to public attention when it bought the threatened and vandalised Midland Club building, home to Caffe Roma before the earthquakes.
Founders Rob Farrell and Sam Rofe believed their combined skills would help them rescue the building a previous owner had been told was too costly to fix.
Rofe had building expertise and had worked with Cook Brothers Construction, while Farrell had worked in finance and property overseas and for his family’s construction firm Farrell Group.
Both were used to a fast pace – Cook Brothers and the Farrell Group have both been listed on the New Zealand Deloitte Fast50 index of fastest growing companies.
Stringer, formerly a commercial real estate agent with NAI Harcourts and now a director of the Christchurch Heritage Trust and Arts Centre trustee, joined the firm in 2016.
The company’s model is to find a property it sees room to improve in a location it likes, and start planning a new use for it.
It brings in co-investors as partners for each purchase.
Its properties so far have all been in and around central Christchurch.
Despite the directors’ strong construction background, putting up new buildings has not really been their thing. Most properties chosen so far have been either heritage buildings or old industrial sites.
Anna Crighton, chair of the Christchurch Heritage Trust, has called Box 112 courageous for taking on damaged heritage sites.
The heritage buildings soak up a lot of cash to repair and to bring up to current building costs, but offer their owners the advantage of city council heritage grants.
The Midland Building project received a $870,000 from council to help meet strengthening costs.
Similarly, the company’s ongoing renovation of a Manchester St mid-20th century office building in into a 40-room hotel with cafe and a rooftop cocktail bar scored a $900,000 grant.
Like the Welles St projects, the Manchester St project is near a residential population base, in this case the One Central housing development.
Also near One Central is the deco-styled old Municipal Electricity Department (MED) building, which the company bought from the Crown to refurbish for new occupants.
Like the New City Hotel, the MED building has the good art deco bones Box 112 believes it can use to create stylish business premises.
Stringer says having confidence in an area is key to investing.
‘‘We look at where the growth areas of the city are going to be. That helps create the sort of neighbourhoods that make up a liveable city.
‘‘If you look after your resident population, that’s what makes a city stand out.’’