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An innovative technological hub is being planned alongside the new Parnell train station being built at the foothills of the Domain alongside the Mainline Steam operation and incorporating the old newmarket signal box.
The station is largely a tourism stop for people going to the Museum, Domain and Parnell village although it may service the fringes of the University of Auckland - but the more we can get development aorund there, the more the station will become useful and justify the $14m expense.
Construction will begin during the Christmas rail closedown and it should be operating by September next year.
Site of new Parnell station
Start-up Incubator the Icehouse which has already helped over 200 start up businesses has revealed plans for an “innovation park” - a hitech industrial park - near the old Carlaw Park alongside where the new station will be built.
Andy Hamilton of this business growth centre says such parks are common place in other countries as governments encourage new hi- tec economies.
He told TVNZ’s Q+A programme: “There’s a fantastic facility there, 2.2 hectares on the edge of the Domain. It’s about creating a honey pot of innovation, where entrepreneurs and start ups can come. It will be connected to the Auckland University but at the site of the new station.”
3 Comments
Sounds good. If they can do what they’ve been doing at the Tank Farm, it will be awesome.
I was hoping that the plan for a performing arts centre in the old depot would take off but no one seems to be talking about it now.
I have been involved with various aspects of the performing arts and Mainline Steam in Parnell and I can tell you the building would be wasted and difficult to convert to a performance venue, but the building is absolutely perfect for steam locomotive restoration.
The St James is sitting just waiting for the performing arts, but and the Parnell Loco Depot is the best locomotive workshop facility for Steam in New Zealand.