I honestly would have thought we would hear something about a hotel operator selection by now. Wonder whats taking so long, after 3 years of inactivity on this building I'm starting to get impatient.

I'm pretty sure they are reffering to forsyth bsrr with the 2016 opening but really there are 3 hotels they could be talking about in the area. Which is pretty damn good for the area. My betting is that the new accor hotel facing victoria square as part of the convention centre will be a sofitel or a sofitel so and I bet forsyth barr will be operated by intercontinental who have expressed interest in the past about coming back here. And I'd say 2017 at the earliest for the copthorne.

Forsyth Barr isn't looking too good right now so its repair would definitely make the area look better and maybe get some confidence back in armagh st.

ethanjosiah said:

The latest I can find is from the first of October:

Hotel sector springs back to life

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Holy shit, never realised the base looked so bad. Been a while since I went past.

Best news I've heard all day! And it opens next year! I'll have to check out the views once it opens.

Pretty sure the stuff one said 2015 as well.

jarden said:

So a bit misleading article and they also say it be open in 2015 while the stuff article says 2016!

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I think Rydges must have sorted it out if they are working on it again, but in the case of the millenium they have to get insurance signed off or the entire building isn't insured. And I think its damage is worse than rydges or forsyth barr's.

Thinking about Forsyth Barr though, I wonder what the alterations at the top include? Hopefully they'll release some renders soon.

jarden said:

Just got to get Rydges and Millenium fixed up as well. Four years on and still no agreement with repairs for the latter one not underway it must be under- insured dispute so as not enough payout to cover all the cost of the repairs they should just bite the bullet and finance the repairs and get their hotels back open to create some income off their properties again.

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That is so obvious that I doubt they would bother putting it in the article.

jarden said:

Time to take down the Forsyth Barr sign for starters.

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I dunno, I do recall the owners getting the buildings status changed from write off to repairable. But if they don't want the building then they should sell it after insurance is worked out. Instead of doing what those idiots at the heritage hotel tower did and demolish it and then sell it.

But in terms of the cathedral I just hate seeing it now, yes it was a nice building but now it is a pile of rubble that is holding up the rebuild of the square. Commercial tenants don't want to look down on the thing and every office building in the square (apart from ASB House) has been cancelled because of lack of tenants.

HavanaClub said:

I heard over a year ago that the Millennium was fixable at relatively low cost, but the owners were doing whatever they could to get the building declared a write-off and demolished because they'd rather take the insurance money than get a functioning hotel back which they didn't want any more.

I think they do want a hotel in ChCh, but a part of their thinking is that if the Anglicans don't allow the cathedral to be restored then Cathedral Square won't be a draw and they'd rather locate elsewhere

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I really don't get it, I mean Anderton isn't in the way now so I wish the they would just get on with it and bowl it over.

honeybear said:

can the mayor/council/government not demand action on the cathedral tidy up? where exactly is it at now? what are we waiting for??? surely there comes a time when it must be declared environmentally a risk? what about health/rats/squattors/vandels etc You wouldnt be allowed to dump a pile of bricks in the middle of queen street in AUCKland so why is this situation allowed to exist...

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It would be nice, but there is one question all heritage advocates fail to recognize. Who's going to pay for it?
If it goes I don't think it will be the end of the square, if anything its existence currently is holding everything up. Absolutely sick of coming down past the river or into the square and seeing that pile of rubble looming over everything and acting as a reminder of the quakes, so much for trying to move on. If they can't afford the repair than get rid of the damn thing. I think the reason investors are holding off is because none of the perspective tenants want to look down at it all day, the minute they finally do something about it than that area will see a big improvement.

Just my 2 cents.

I really don't know where they will find over 150 million dollars. But if they can, that would be pretty cool.

I'd just love to see some action.

I think handing it over to Anderton is the worst possible thing they could do.

birchey said:

I think we should all get used to Cathedral Square being a mess. Anglicans who will accept no help from anyone have stated that they will not build a new contemporary cathedral until they have all the monies to do so. At this point in time they are 10's of millions short. They stated 2 years ago that to raise the monies needed and to build will take at least 10 YEARS. They will not take on any loans. The real danger is that they demolish,and then years later find they cannot raise the money and can the whole show and Christchurch gets nothing,
Best option as far as I can see is to hand it over to Anderton's lot I imagine it is easier to fund raise to restore than to fund raise to build from new.
My 2 cent's worth.

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I forgot about this, it is a brilliant idea! And it is even in the cathedrals insurance budget. I hope it gets built.

We should probably get back on topic though.

TonyNZ said:

^^ I agree, I think Sir Miles warrens option is the obvious way to go. $67mil isn't a ridiculous price tag. Just get to it already!

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Its nice to see some of these old buildings getting a new life, a 5 story building in sydenham is being stripped down to a shell right now. I'd say most of the buildings left now that aren't in the way of CERA will be repaired, probably re-clad.

Edit: Just remembered that this starts somewhere around April so they won't have started work quite yet. Or they might have..was there anyone working in there?

jarden said:

Work is now underway converting the hotel. The builder/developer Lanyon & Le Compte has bought other as is where is buildings and restored them if only other firms were willing to do the same our city may not have so many holes to fill as it does today. Not much can be seen from the outside just the site fence.

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Already gutted, thats one of the reasons they were confident about selling it to hotel investors. All it needs is repairs, a new stairwell, new base and interior. Its not that badly damaged either. Oh and they are removing the old parking ramp, not sure what they're going to do to let people into the parking garage. (Which was another selling point, not many as is where is buildings have an attached 3 story carpark) This might not be the only tall as is where is building either, I think they sold the garlinge (or something like that) apartments in Merivale not that long ago, and the old strawberry fare building on peterborough st sold recently too.

jarden said:

Maybe gutting it back to it's shell before they put in the new rooms later.

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I will definitely have a peek around when this, rydges and the millennium open. I can't wait to see what the podium re-clad is going to look like. If it looks like this:



My god it would be glorious.

Picture source: http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=505569&page=24
Picture taken by Brojoro from the Auckland subforum. Post 466.
http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=505569&page=24

Lots of people like to hate on this building, but I actually really like it, always have and always will. Bob jones is an ass though, doesn't give a crap about christchurch anymore.

jarden said:

I went up to the top on the open day back in 89. Then it was called Robert Jones House someone wrote on the dusty window 'Nice View Bob' I always remember that for some reason. Yes it is very lucky it has been saved from the wrecking ball as many residents of the city wanted it gone. So glad the owner not give in to peer pressure.

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If he had hit it big, would that have potentially meant that more towers like forsyth barr were built? I wish I could see some of the tower plans that never came to fruition in Christchurch after the crash. Its sad but interesting at the same time.

HavanaClub said:

^^ Yeah Bob Jones is a clown. He had a chance to make it big back in the 80s/90s, but his ego did him in

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We might see another high rise boom for nz in the future but the current boom seems to exclude office high rises. Aucklands got a couple residential ones going up but I don't think any office towers have been proposed. Real shame about that octagon proposal, I wonder if we ever had a 30 story tower proposed? I know wellington did on lambton quay before the 1992 crash. And Auckland had a 55 story tower on the waterfront, I have a book from 1989 which was made to show how much of an economic power nz was at the time and it had a page with aucklands skyline full of proposals. The only one there that was actually built was the ANZ Centre. It would be cool if someone had newspaper clipping of the octagon and other proposals. There was a plan to frame the entire CBD with high rises. I think FB and PWC were kind of precursors to that plan looking at where they are. (or were in terms of PWC)

Edit: Just saw a pretty funny comment on rebuild chch about FB, someone said the building was unstable because "i was in victoria square during the quake and the building was swaying". You have got to be kidding me.

jarden said:

One of the best towers that got scrapped in the 80's was called 'The Octagon' it had 16 floors all with 8 sides on a 2 level square podium was to go up on Oxford tce by Cashel mall with alternating black and red 'Canterbury colours' with mirror glass was a very sleek design was to be built by Bert Govan but alas it not go ahead maybe too late market had gone for office space only a 2 floor project got built on the site in the end.
I wish they could do something like that today but cost would be prohibitive and too high as well. Developers were more daring in those days willing to put up a landmark not like the small hum drum projects we get on offer today.

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Yeah, even in that recent doco on the quakes they did you hear someone refer to the building as unstable. So wrong, in fact this building survived with very little structural damage. The stairwell collapse was because of shoddy construction work. Very shoddy work, they actually did a report on it with a diagram. The builder must have had 0 brain cells. Can't wait for it to become a hotel!

honeybear said:

what I am really impressed by is that this building had a lot of bad publicity at the time of the quakes with people being trapped, internal stairs collapsing etc and if I remember correctly was one of the first that I think was initially talked about for demolition. But a complete turnaround! And now a world class hotel (sort of):banana:

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