7 BRITOMART

In 1995, Auckland City Mayor Les Mills proposed a Britomart scheme that included:

• a five storey underground transport interchange
• a train station with four rail lines and the provision for light rail
• an underground bus terminal
• major high-rise development
• 2900 car parking spaces
• putting Quay Street underground
• new public spaces.

There was strong opposition with critics arguing about a lack of public consultation, the bus operators’ reluctance to operate in an underground terminal, the large financial risk, and the lack of success obtaining a resource consent for the de-watering of the site.

Auckland City Council committed $125 million to the transport centre, but developer Jihong Lu missed contractual deadlines and the project was cancelled. A new Council was elected in October 1998 who resolved to rethink the project.

A new Mayor, Christine Fletcher, promised to ‘open the books’ on Britomart. In 1999 there was a recommendation to proceed with a revised version of the project following public consultation.

Finally in 2001 the Auckland City Council council approved a  recommendation to build the first stage of a new Auckland train station hub downtown in the disused Auckland Chief Post Office .

The word Britomart comes from a mythological Cretan Goddess Britomartis but Britomart is a word very important in Auckland’s early history when it became the capital briefly.

There was Port Britomart.The Britomart area was a large reach of water between Britomart Point and the Hobson Street ridge. Auckland’s foreshore continued along today’s Britomart Place, Fort Street and Fanshaw Street.

The most prominent coastal feature on the site was Point Britomart, which reached far out into the harbour along what is now Britomart Place.

Queen St railway station in 1908

This was not the first time, a railway station was in the area.
In 1885, a railway station opened in Queen St near where the post office would be built – and remained until the Beach Rd station in Parnell was opened.

Post office in its hey day | Auckland library on display at Britomart

The post office, built from 1909 and opened in 1912, was constructed at the then hub of the city’s transport system, next to the ferry building, tram terminus and original railway building, as well as the commercial wharves and heralded as a milestone in the progress of the city.
The Post Office occupied the building until the early 1990s, making a number of modifications to the structure. An Art Deco rear extension, built in the 1930s, was demolished by the City Council in 2001 in preparation for the building’s conversion to the train and bus centre.

The Post Bank had vacated the CPO in 1988. In 1995 Auckland City purchased the former CPO from NZ Post Properties for $15.5m.
The council let stage one of the Britomart development contract for the underground railway station to Downer Construction New Zealand Limited.

$98 million had been budgeted for this stage of the work, and the Downer Construction tender plus provisional sums for some additional works brought the total estimate cost to council to $96.6 million.

Tunnel being built, 2002 | Auckland City

The council’s decision noted that contract to build New Zealand’s first underground railway station included:

• excavation of 190,000m3 of dirt (13,000 truckloads of earth removed)

• 40,000m3 of concrete

• a basement slab 13,000m2 and up to 1.5m thick

• seven kilometres of railway track

• three rail platforms with five rail lines

• 11 bell shaped volcanic cone skylights each weighing 28 ton

• 401 secant piles some to a depth of 42m (station walls)* sheet piling (station walls)

• stainless steel interior ceiling cladding imported from Spain

• New Zealand landscape features including natural stone, indigenous flora, natural light, water walls

• two air conditioning ducts on either side of the station roof

• design flexibility (light rail, electric heavy rail, diesel heavy rail

Hard to recognise how the area looked | Auckalndd City

As excavation continued on the Britomart site, part of the 1865 Gore Street jetty was unearthed.

Large hardwood beams that held up the 1885 Queen Street Station were discovered, as well as sleepers from the original track.

Construction | Auckland City

When asbestos was discovered in the building, it was immediately sealed to stop any contaminated material escaping into the atmosphere.

The contractor, Downer Construction, notified council immediately and worked cooperatively to guarantee both the safety of their workers and the public. The project budget had allowed a contingency for this sort of event, allowing the project to still be completed on time and within budget.

Construction inside | Auckland City

Britomart was opened on July 25, 2003, with the late Sir Edmund and Lady Hillary special guests of honour and rode horse and carriage down Queen St to the new station.

Mayor John Banks said: “This day marks the beginning of much greater things in public transport and world-class urban development. Planning, designing and building the $204 million Britomart Transport Centre has been no easy task.”

At 5.40am on 23 June 2003 the first train arrived on platform 5 of the Britomart Underground Railway Station. This historic moment signified the first scheduled train into Downtown Auckland in almost 73 years.

The railway station design – the work of two New Zealand architectural firms, Mario Madayag Architecture and JASMAX Ltd- collected the global Business Week /Architectural Record Award. The aim was to provide “a sense of place” as an essential element of the design.

Architect Mario Madayag: “The design needed to celebrate rail travel, and it also needed to capture the spirit of Auckland.”

His concept: The city’s volcanic origins and local Maori culture provided the key. A series of skylights running the length of the station represented the city’s volcanic cones. Local basalt rock also featured in the station, in the polished aggregate on the platforms and cladding on a water wall. A series of skylights ran the length of the station represent the city’s volcanic cones.

HISTORY PART 8: ELECTRIC RAIL

previous page 6