Activation principal Barbara Holloway<\/a>, who spearheaded the programme, is a long-time cheerleader for the central city (she lives up by the University of Auckland law school) and spent 11 years as town manager for the Karangahape Rd Business Association.<\/p>\nShe\u2019s seen a growing appetite for \u201cexperiential shopping\u201d beyond cookie-cutter chain stores and sterile shopping malls.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a trend she believes character destinations like the Strand can capitalise on by taking a more diverse and innovative approach that supports young entrepreneurs.<\/p>\n
![\"Barbara]()
Barbara Holloway says innovative projects in heritage arcades like the Strand can fill a growing demand for “experiential shopping”. Photo \/ Michael Craig<\/p>\n
\u201cTo be successful in retail now, you have to morph, and you have to get on point,\u201d she says. \u201cWe had young people coming for queers in safe spaces, and we had older people coming for the opera who hadn\u2019t been into the city for years.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I want some new towels, I\u2019ll probably buy them online. If people are going to shop in person, they want more.\u201d <\/p>\n
The resurgence of interest in heritage spaces comes too late for lost treasures already bulldozed in the name of progress. Timaru\u2019s Royal Arcade, circa 1880s, is one of only a handful of vintage shopping arcades that survive today.<\/p>\n
Victoria Arcade, which opened in Auckland\u2019s Queen St in 1885, was described as \u201ca symphony in red brick\u201d and \u201cabsolutely heroic\u201d by conservation architect Jeremy Salmond. It was demolished in 1978 to make way for the Bank of New Zealand\u2019s corporate headquarters.<\/p>\n
Just a few blocks away, His Majesty\u2019s Theatre and its ornate adjoining arcade \u2013 built in 1902 and featuring a glass-roofed promenade \u2013 were controversially flattened 10 years later, despite public opposition. A hotel and apartment complex is on the site now.<\/p>\n
Since it opened, Queens Arcade has been owned by the Davis family, who have strong generational links to the city.<\/p>\n
Sir Ernest Davis, a former Auckland mayor and brewing magnate, donated Browns Island to the citizens of Auckland and funded construction of the lighthouse on Tiritiri Matangi Island.<\/p>\n
In 1950, his nephew, Eliot Davis, commissioned the Art Deco Mission Bay fountain as a memorial to his son.<\/p>\n
![\"The]()
The Trevor Moss Davis Memorial Fountain at Auckland’s Mission Bay. Photo \/ Alex Burton<\/p>\n
Property manager Ian Wright, who has worked on the Queens Arcade refurbishment project for the past five years, says the family are committed to retaining the building long-term.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom the beginning, the message has been that this will remain a legacy asset,\u201d he says. \u201cWe\u2019re not going to redevelop and build office towers or do a deal with a hotel.\u201d<\/p>\n
Originally designed by architect William Swanson Read Bloomfield (Ng\u0101ti Kahungunu), the arcade features pillars made from polished Whang\u0101rei marble, one of the key heritage elements that will be retained.<\/p>\n
Believed to be the first person of M\u0101ori descent to qualify and practise as an architect in New Zealand, Bloomfield also designed the Spanish Mission-style Lopdell House in Titirangi (originally a hotel, its ground-floor cabaret was kitted out with a dance floor).<\/p>\n
In 1980, alterations to Queens Arcade removed office levels from its Queen St frontage and added a glazed atrium, which will be fitted with new panes of glass.<\/p>\n
In a nod to the past, a new logo has been created, replacing the trademark silhouette of Queen Elizabeth II with her great-great-grandmother, Queen Victoria.<\/p>\n
![\"Property]()
Property manager Ian Wright has been working on the Queens Arcade project for the past five years. Photo \/ Anna Heath<\/p>\n
In the project\u2019s initial stages, Wright conducted extensive research into the history of Queens Arcade and its surrounds, digging out the original building plans at Archives NZ in Wellington, sourcing old black-and-white photographs, and scouring the Papers Past website.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had pretty much no electronic files at all,\u201d says Wright, who is still keen to trace any other archival material, including film footage and newspaper articles.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s happened over time has been very piecemeal, with stuff just tacked on. So it\u2019s meant getting down in the basement and going up into the ceiling, tracing water lines and working out where to put isolation points.\u201d<\/p>\n
As part of his research into the origin and evolution of shopping arcades, Wright went on a recce trip to Australia to visit half a dozen heritage sites, including Melbourne\u2019s Royal Arcade (built in 1870) and Sydney\u2019s Strand Arcade (1892).<\/p>\n
According to what he\u2019s gleaned, the lineage of the modern shopping arcade dates back to early 19th-century London, where Lord George Cavendish commissioned Burlington Arcade in Piccadilly in 1819.<\/p>\n
Wright says this established a new urban retail typology: a covered, curated promenade separating commerce from the disorder of the street.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were boutiquey small; you probably had your bootmaker and your candlestick maker. And I suspect some of those arcades then became safe and secure and warm places in cities like London, where it would have been horrible in wintertime on the strip retail.\u201d<\/p>\n
The arcade model spread rapidly across Europe and the British Empire. In Australia\u2019s gold-rush era, they became a symbol of prosperity, reflecting the Victorian fascination with glass roofs, mosaic floors and decorative ironwork.<\/p>\n
Sydney\u2019s Queen Victoria Building, which opened in 1898, expanded the concept to occupy an entire city block \u2013 \u201ca cathedral of commerce\u201d that foreshadowed modern shopping malls.<\/p>\n
Wright says Queens Arcade belongs to a second wave of arcade design, where retail became integrated into multi-storey commercial buildings and the exuberance of the Victorian period gave way to \u201cinter-war refinement\u201d.<\/p>\n
The current makeover, by JCY Architects, will open up the ground floor by stripping out the escalator and installing fresh lighting.<\/p>\n
![\"A]()
A rendering of how Queens Arcade will look when it reopens in November.<\/p>\n
A number of the small, 25sq m shops will be reconfigured to create significantly larger retail spaces, while the upper level will become a health and wellbeing hub.<\/p>\n
Wright returned from Australia with a database of photographs he has used as reference points. However, property managers view architecturally designed buildings with a more critical eye.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were a whole lot of gargoyles and old clocks and things poked around the top that look interesting, but often they\u2019re filthy dirty,\u201d he says. \u201cI go into buildings, even brand-new ones, and think, how are you going to clean or fix that?\u201d<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a far more crucial aspect than design trimmings when it comes to how people judge shopping centres, anyway. \u201cDo you know what that is?\u201d asks Wright. \u201cThe toilets.\u201d<\/p>\n
Heritage architect Jane Matthews, who consulted on the Queens Arcade project, says resource consent is required for changes to scheduled historic buildings and applications are considered on a case-by-case basis.<\/p>\n
The overall aim is to retain heritage values, balanced against requirements for use that evolve and change over time.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat might be ensuring heritage fabric and features are retained, with changes kept to a minimum as far as possible, or it might be recovering the qualities of a place by removing later alterations that have obscured them.\u201d<\/p>\n
A particularly successful heritage development is The Tannery in Christchurch, where the original 19th-century structure now houses a boutique retail complex.<\/p>\n
In Wellington, the Old Bank Arcade was a late 90s makeover of the Bank of New Zealand on Lambton Quay. Opened in 1901 as the bank\u2019s head office, the near-derelict building was restored by the same company that had transformed the Queen Victoria Building in Sydney.<\/p>\n
Auckland property developer and former Shortland Street actor Paul Reid runs The Icon Group, which owns St Kevin\u2019s Arcade on Karangahape Rd and Elliott Stables.<\/p>\n
![\"Jungle]()
Jungle 8 owner Paul Wong with PhoZilla noodle soup at the Vietnamese-style street food eatery in Elliott Stables. Photo \/ Jason Oxenham<\/p>\n
An inner-city food hall that operates out of an Edwardian warehouse, the Stables was given a $2 million makeover in 2023, skewing its mix of eateries towards Asian street food.<\/p>\n
Reid, who says St Kevin\u2019s Arcade is currently looking for a top-notch barber, believes the City Rail Link will have a \u201cmassively positive impact\u201d on both sites and their surrounding neighbourhoods when it finally opens this year.<\/p>\n
The imminent opening of Faradays, a luxury $30m department store<\/a>, is also good news for the seaward end of Queen St, where Cartier is set to join the likes of Gucci, Dior and Louis Vuitton. Queens Arcade is right across the road.<\/p>\nWhile opinions are divided on the ethics and efficacy of the Government\u2019s new move-on orders aimed at controlling the homeless community, Ian Wright is optimistic about Auckland\u2019s return to a \u201cstrong, economically viable CBD\u201d.<\/p>\n
The revamped Queens Arcade will feature digital screens showcasing stories and images from the building\u2019s often colourful history. In 1943, America\u2019s first lady, Eleanor Roosevelt, visited the Servicewomen\u2019s Club upstairs.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt holds a lot of memories,\u201d says Wright. \u201cPeople will often say, \u2018I used to go to the tearooms\u2019. And before it became the arcade, it was a butcher\u2019s and bacon shop.<\/p>\n
\u201cNew Zealand doesn\u2019t have many of these grand old buildings. That\u2019s why this one is special.\u201d<\/p>\n
Joanna Wane is a senior lifestyle writer with an interest in social issues and the arts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cEveryone used to come into town to meet on a Friday night. People didn\u2019t have the big shopping…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":329867,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[97474,3952,9084,22773,4190,543,11746,177287,11591,8993,15902,2944,1446,83013,23949,130,111,43,139,69,1118,1642,644,59744,1243,223],"class_list":["post-329866","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-arcades","tag-aucklands","tag-challenges","tag-comeback","tag-demand","tag-driven","tag-edge","tag-experiential","tag-extinction","tag-heritage","tag-innercity","tag-inside","tag-making","tag-malls","tag-mega","tag-more","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-online","tag-retail","tag-revival","tag-shopping","tag-the"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=329866"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329866\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/329867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=329866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=329866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=329866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}