As part of that June vote, the council approved $150,000 from the City Growth Fund to support Te Aro H\u0101, to make visible improvements to buildings over the next 12 months.<\/p>\n
The immediate focus is repainting buildings, improving lighting and upgrading shopfronts. <\/p>\n
Three facades are due to be refreshed this year, with another four planned next year.<\/p>\n
Beyond cosmetic improvements, Richardson said the group is planning \u201cbigger transformations\u201d, including establishing four distinct quarters.<\/p>\n
The first, Courtenay Central, would be anchored by the under-development Reading Cinema complex, set to reopen as The Court next year.<\/p>\n
Blair and Allen streets would be dominated by art-focused retail and hospitality offerings, with the potential of closing the streets off for markets and al fresco dining.<\/p>\n
The area near the St James Theatre would be the third quarter, made up of a variety of commercial tenancies for office, community, medical and service-oriented businesses, with a desire to \u201creactivate\u201d the theatre\u2019s underutilised ground floor.<\/p>\n
Courtenay South would be the final quarter, comprising a wide variety of \u201csmall format restaurants and bars\u201d to represent a \u201cliveable urban neighbourhood\u201d.<\/p>\n
The Te Aro H\u0101 partnership plans dividing Courtenay Pl into four quarters, making up a day and night precinct.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re just finding ways to bring more spark and joy into the precinct,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
The group is chaired by former mayor Dame Kerry Prendergast, and includes representatives of local businesses Willis Bond, LT McGuinness, Studio Pacific Architecture, Athfield Architects, Dunning Thornton, Everyone, McIndoe Urban and Urban Dream Brokerage.<\/p>\n
Prendergast served as a Wellington City Councillor in the early 1990s when the council worked with business owners to transform Blair and Allen streets from a redundant industrial area dominated by produce warehousing into a lively hospitality and retail strip.<\/p>\n
The successful initiative was born out of building owners wanting paved streets to attract more foot traffic, with the council agreeing to upgrade the street design if the owners improved their buildings.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I\u2019ve seen it happen before where the city invests in the urban design aspects of an area and the private sector upgrade their buildings, and it\u2019s a win-win,\u201d she told the Herald.<\/p>\n
Artist mock-ups show the Hannah Playhouse revitalised with lighting and nearby sculptural elements.<\/p>\n
One recent success story of the area is cafe Glou Glou, opened by Mike Ny and business partner Taz Mcauley on Allen St.<\/p>\n
Ny said they took a gamble on an area that had developed a reputation for being in decline, saying they were initially surrounded by vacancies when moving into The Exchange building at the start of 2024.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just needed to effectively lead the charge there, so we took a punt, we moved in, and we worked very closely with the landlords, and I think that has paid off.\u201d<\/p>\n
The building now hosts a range of businesses and organisations, from wellness centre O Studio to galleries and offices, with auction house Dunbar Sloane the next to move in.<\/p>\n
\u201cEver since we opened, we\u2019ve been growing month on month,\u201d Ny said, adding the business was now open on evenings as a wine bar.<\/p>\n
Mike Ny (left) opened Glou Glou on Allen St with business partner Taz Mcauley in January 2024, and says it has grown month-on-month since. Photo \/ Wellington NZ<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s definitely been hard, there\u2019s no doubt about that, the whole city\u2019s been struggling, but we took that punt [and] it\u2019s working out.\u201d<\/p>\n
He became involved in the Te Aro H\u0101 plans out of a desire to transform the area into something new, rather than recreate what it was like in its heyday.<\/p>\n
Part of that, he said, was moving away from the strip\u2019s nightlife reputation, and developing it as more of a daytime destination.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that if we took that approach, made it more appealing for daytime, made it more family friendly, activated it a little bit more in the day, that would naturally clean up the street, bring more foot traffic in, it would give people more reason to travel in.\u201d <\/p>\n
Ethan Manera<\/a> is a Wellington-based journalist covering Wellington issues, local politics and business in the capital. He can be emailed at ethan.manera@nzme.co.nz<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As part of that June vote, the council approved $150,000 from the City Growth Fund to support Te…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":553228,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[88140,12635,147655,1558,138,20703,33118,271835,7557,1888,23834,209,194248,305,296,219318,26477,42782,1132,111,43,139,69,6725,2170,72781,250762,271836,1355,21694,8690,61,34367,21732,52,15900,102,19135,28643],"class_list":["post-553227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-88140","tag-area","tag-aro","tag-been","tag-business","tag-cancelled","tag-creative","tag-dilapidated","tag-district","tag-first","tag-golden","tag-group","tag-h","tag-have","tag-into","tag-languishing","tag-leaders","tag-mile","tag-million","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-pitch","tag-plan","tag-refreshing","tag-revitalise","tag-shopfronts","tag-starting","tag-step","tag-te","tag-to","tag-transform","tag-vision","tag-wellington","tag-wellingtons","tag-with","tag-working","tag-worldclass"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553227","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=553227"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553227\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/553228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=553227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=553227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=553227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}