Where should Invercargill's 'town square' be?
“I think while most people don’t want to lose Wachner Place from having the meeting capacity it does now, it’s probably not the best location for a town square."
Is Wachner Place the best fit for Invercargill, in terms of a “town square”?
Should Wachner Place be demolished and a new inner city gathering place be found elsewhere?
They are key questions being raised as the Invercargill City Council continues to work through the “Our City With Heart - City Centre Focus” project.
For many years Wachner Place has been regarded Invercargill’s ‘town square’ and the main gathering space in the city’s centre.
Although feedback has suggested many people don’t feel safe in the area and as a result, it has become somewhat underutilised.
It’s also disconnected with the council’s investment in Invercargill Central. A state highway stands between Wachner Place and the new city block development.
Invercargill city centre governance group chairperson John Green, a prominent businessman in Invercargill, has suggested there might be better options elsewhere to consider for the city’s “town square”.
“I think while most people don’t want to lose Wachner Place from having the meeting capacity it does now, it’s probably not the best location for a town square.
“But I would equally understand that people wouldn’t want to give it up unless they knew what they were going to get.
“I think if we were just putting it out there, we would say, ideally, the town square would be even more centrally located away from that heavier traffic route.”
“I know there are some sites under consideration, but I know that’s tricky at this stage,” Green said at a council workshop meeting.
Green said there were several factors that would need to be considered when choosing where to have such a site.
They include having a north-facing aspect, it needs to be warm, needs to be safe, needs to have a lot of people around, and ideally needs to be facing onto retail that is activated by people being there.
Green acknowledges you can’t always get exactly what you want but he felt there could be other opportunities than what Invercargill has at the moment.
In November last year, Nelson-based property investor Gaire Thompson bought the site that houses the SIT Arcade, as well as the adjoining former SIT downtown campus site.
The Southern Institute of Technology had owned that 25 Don St property since 2001.
That type of location could potentially be a prime spot for a “town square” public gathering space, while also linking Esk and Don St.
Added to the mix, when considering Wachner Place, was the fact the Menzies Building is being transformed into a 4.5-star hotel.
The Menzies Building, which Geoff Thomson of Distinction Hotels is developing, is situated behind Wachner Place.
Invercargill City Council’s strategic asset planning manager Russell Pearson said there has been some questions raised as to how that hotel might be accessed.
At the moment the sole vehicle access to the Menzies Building is from Leven St.
An option could be to remove Wachner Place as it is and transform it back into street access from Leven St through to Dee St, as it once was.
“[It] just starts to raise some of the questions as to what to do with that area of the city. How will a hotel link and relate back to Our City With Heart, which is Esk St….This is really the starting point to contemplate what might happen in that area,” Pearson said.
Council mana whenua representative Pania Coote said she had always viewed Wachner Place as a people’s place where people gather.
“It would be sad if there was any sort of shift,” Coote said.
Fellow mana whenua representative Evelyn Cook also indicated she had reservations about scrapping Wachner Place as a public space.
“We a proposing to change because the use of a building is changing. I’m not sure that’s the best reason to actually change Wachner Place. Because unless Esk St becomes pedestrian-only, there is not going to be a safe gathering space in our ‘City With Heart’.”
She felt that while changing Wachner Place might be best for the hotel business it might not be the best for the city as a whole.
“I think we need to consider if there are other things we can do to make Wachner Place a safe public gathering space, or look at what the alternative is which is to make Esk St pedestrian only.”
Invercargill City Council’s group infrastructure manager Erin Moogan clarified the initial driver for the “mini master-planning” was not around just the change of the use of the Menzies Building. It was around how to support investment in the city which was initially around the Langlands Hotel, and investment in Invercargill Central Limited.
Cr Grant Dermody felt the council needed to be flexible in looking at other options that are not just Wachner Place.
“I think we’ve got to look to our officers to bring some options to us. They might appear a little bit bold, but I think there are those options around if we are really trying to develop a public space, where we can have events, that not only supports the investment we’ve made but also investments that businesses have made, like ILT and the Thompsons.”