Clock move considered
The Invercargill City Council is considering moving a clock forward, not as a daylight saving protest but as a multimillion-dollar change to inner-city amenity. The council and the developer of the Distinction Hotel project in Esk St West have hit upon a plan to retain the Wachner Place clock, which needs major repair work, in a new tower that would be moved east on the site towards Dee St, opening up bus access to the new hotel and car park behind it.
Costs would be shared with the developer but the council’s contribution has been been budgeted, with contingencies, to be as much as $4 million.
A report from the council’s chief engineer for infrastructure, Russell Pearson, being considered by city councillors yesterday, said the budget comprised $2 million as the council’s contribution for street improvements; $1 million contingency for associated works such as the clock mechanism and unforeseen requirements; and $1 million contingency specifically for any soil contamination within the road areas. Councillors were to be asked to endorse further work on the draft proposal, which is acknowledged to need finer detailing.
In its initial planning the council consulted the public on plans to redesign Wachner Place to allow buses to travel through it to the new hotel and car park.
Public consultation feedback favoured a different access route for the hotel, through Leven St, but the council has already decided in a majority vote to stick with Wachner Place as the preferred option. The plans also potentially involved the removal of the clock, for which many defenders emerged.
The council pledged to pursue a compromise that would balance bus access while maintaining “a consistent design ethos’’ with the inner-city street work of recent times.
A project governance group including mayor Nobby Clark, deputy mayor Tom Campbell, finance chairman Grant Dermody, senior council staff, and a Distinction team including owner Geoff Thomson came up with the
proposal. Pearson said in his report the clock mechanism needed a major overhaul, whether or not it was moved.
Distinction had “also offered to coordinate and undertake the construction works with the majority of cost being met, thereby limiting council’s contribution (and risks) to the project’’.
The timing of completion of streetscape works and opening of the hotel would rest with the developer, which lessened time constraints on council resources and allowed the most flexibility for Distinction to co-ordinate the hotel, car park and street reinstatement activities.