How Aotea Square Looks

 

After two years of construction activity,  Aotea Square reopened to the public at midday.

Aotea Square was officially opened by Sir Dove-Myer Robinson in 1979, three years after the Civic underground car park was built.

His statue has been resurrected for the square and the champion of inner city light rail whispered to me in an exclusive interview that he couldn’t believe we are still debating whether we have a CBD rail loop.

The grass area is still being grown and remains cordoned off.

The $80 million redevelopment project included the Aotea Square landscape upgrade, the Civic car park roof replacement and upgrade, as well as improvements to the façade of Aotea Centre.


Councillor Greg Moyle, chairperson for the Arts, Recreation and Culture committee describes the result as meaning there is now “a modern and high quality public space for all Aucklanders. The square now provides a safe, family-friendly environment for residents and visitors to enjoy major public events or everyday activities.”

He said with trees, new paving, seating, grassed terraces and ambient lighting, Aotea Square will be a great venue for people to connect, celebrate, and enjoy the best of Auckland’s arts and entertainment, day or night.

An upgrade of the square was planned from 2000, but was put on hold following the discovery of damage to the Civic car park roof in 2004.

Priority shifted to repairing the Civic car park roof beneath the square to make it structurally sound.  This provided the council with an ideal opportunity to combine the repair of the Civic Car Park roof and upgrade the square.

PICTURES OF THE OPEN DAY are here

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8 Comments

 
  1. joust says:

    Looks good. Will take a trip in Monday.

  2. Andy says:

    Looks like more seating which is nice. I don’t see any of those metal things on the edge of the seats though, which means the skaters will be railsliding them in no time.

  3. Joshua says:

    Andy - I actually preferred grinding on the steel rather than wooden edges, it’s smoother and easy to maintain momentum. I don’t personally see the problem with boarders using some street equipment as long as they respect others in the area. Good to see public spaces being used in my opinion.

  4. Andy says:

    To be honest I’m on the fence about it, I agree it is good to see public spaces being used but I have also seen seats looking pretty messy and scratched after use. In any case, it seems they are not appreciated by some.

    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/image.cfm?c_id=1&gal_objectid=10677596&gallery_id=114256#7118712

  5. [...] media: central Auckland news Photos taken today by Jon C: └ Tags: Auckland, Council, creative economy, inspirational enironments [...]

 

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