How to add life to the city’s heart
Improving Queen St is a job for landlords and tenants, and for council and its agencies and officials. And for the rest of us, actually. Some suggestions . . .
Have the damn parade
Why are we not having an America’s Cup parade? Set a date and tell Grant Dalton they all have to be there. Then sit down with retailers, arts groups and others to make a plan: how to make it the most fantastic event on Queen St ever, for everyone. With Parade Day specials, competitions and a hundred other enticements in all the shops.
Open more cafes and restaurants
What’s essential for any shopping precinct? What kind of retail outlets do people use most often? And what’s missing in Queen St? The answer to each question is the same: a good range of places to eat.
The primary reason for this is the rents: cafes can’t afford them. So, who’s going to change that?
The poor range of hospitality venues is especially telling in the “arts precinct”, in and around the strip from Q Theatre down past the town hall to the Civic.
Learn from Britomart
When Cooper and Co developed Britomart, they curated the whole experience. In particular, they found the tenants they wanted — shops, bars and restaurants, corporates for the big buildings — and made them offers they couldn’t refuse.
They also employed people to create and run a programme of markets, entertainments, exhibitions and other activities in the open Takutai Square. They kept the architects and landscape designers up to the mark. They added services like valet parking for those who needed it.
That’s the property owners doing the mahi, because a city centre doesn’t look after itself.
Queen St could do with that attitude. Why aren’t they saying, We’re going to beat Coopers at their own game?
Keep the shops full, whatever
Landlords surely know that nothing kills the life of a street more than empty shops. Where there’s one, another will follow. Rough sleepers will follow too, because empty doorways are good places to spend the night.
If landlords don’t want that, why don’t they keep the shops full?
Commercial Bay owner Precinct Properties enticed several start-ups and suburban stores to open in that complex: the landlord helped the tenants get established.
How many promising retailers would like to give Queen St a try but are wary of the commitment? How many arts groups, food trucks, service centres, health workers and others would like to give it a go?
Many landlords are already helping their tenants. But the empty shops suggest they’re not all doing enough.
And why does the council leave its own shops unfilled? The former Esquires premises in the Wellesley St corner of the central library, visible from Queen St, is empty: it’s a top spot, so why?
Letting shops remain empty is urban vandalism.
Knock down some buildings
We don’t need all the undistinguished smaller buildings. How about replacing two or three of them with pocket parks?
Or with allotments, for innercity residents to hire?
What, someone will lose money? Those things will bring people to Queen St: if you want, think of them as ways to generate customers for the shops in the other buildings.
Repurpose some buildings
Queen St probably needs another food hall. If could definitely do with a drop-in arts centre/studio complex/meeting hall/exhibition space of some kind.
The Auckland Museum has just opened a marvellous new show about the city: why doesn’t it have an outpost showroom in Queen St to entice people up the hill to the Domain?
What about a permanent venue dedicated to the future of Auckland? A place for exhibitions, interactive displays, meetings, a place where people can go and debate the merits of newspaper articles like this one.
Put a bomb under the universities
Universities are where you find the densest ratio of extremely smart, fascinating, experienced communicators anywhere on the planet, and we have three of them (the University of Auckland and AUT, plus a thriving outpost of Massey University). Why do they all engage so little, in a public way, with the city?
How about a series of public lectures and debates, in the larger empty shop fronts?
Change the shop hours
Why do most shops shut at or before the time many people go home?
Learn from Louis Vuitton
Louis Vuitton knows its market. That store offers shoppers not merely things to buy but an entire, exquisite experience, for people who want nothing less. The shoppers love it and they return.
Sports shops could look into their own customers’ souls and work out how to make them happy. Why can’t you go into a Queen St store and hit golf balls, or witness a live panel debate with smart, funny people on the weekend’s big games, or talk to an All Black every Friday lunchtime?
Do those souvenir shops desperate for the return of the cruise ships think they could do any more right now than just stare in vain at the empty horizon, still hoping to sell some merch?
Adventure outfitters, clothing stores, entertainment tech stores, food shops, children’s shops, you name it, could all do this. Offer an experience their shoppers really want.
Where’s Smith & Caughey’s busy, captivating and entrancing programme of events?
Work with iwi
Nga¯ti Wha¯tua are major landowners in the city, and other iwi also have a range of commercial and cultural interests and values. It’s about time we saw more of it in Queen St, and that requires everyone to rise to the challenge.
Supercharge the festivals
Through the year, Queen St is the principal home to an arts festival, film festival, writers festival, comedy festival, buskers festival and cultural festivals like Diwali. Where are the great dine/show packages? Why don’t the shops make the most of these events with window displays, in-store events and special opening hours?
Sort out the St James
The magnificent heritage-listed venue is too dangerous to use and too expensive to repair. Somebody has to break that stalemate.
Do your boasting on the street
Heart of the City, the business association, works hard to present events and attractions in and around Queen St, and their website (heartofthecity.co.nz) is always full of enticements.
But why don’t the landlords give them street frontage for their promotions? Where’s the great place to go on Queen St to find out what’s happening?
Separate scooters and cyclists from pedestrians
It’s scandalous that pedestrians are still expected to mix with e-scooter riders and cyclists. For the safety of everyone, scooters and bikes should be confined to their own lanes, with the footpaths free for people walking and the roadway dedicated to those vehicles that need to be in the street.
Get rid of the diesel buses
They’re polluting and, when they’re end to end, a visual wall. Allow in only as few as necessary until electric buses arrive. Stop press: CityLink buses turn electric this month!
Make Midtown a thing
There’s a fairly major bus terminal straddling Queen St, but you wouldn’t know it. Imagine Midtown with rows of stalls, selling things and showcasing the shops on Queen St itself.
Answer the question
The question is: What is the point of Queen St, now?
How about: It should be our town square. From Aotea Square to the waterfront, make Queen St the linear centre of the city, the place you go to, and spend time in, because it’s chock-full of cool events, surprising activities, great shops, excellent spots to sit and relax, and crowds of people. Make everything serve that purpose.