Farmers Lodges Plans For Redevelopment

In what is shaping up as a win-win scenario for Farmers and Art Deco conservationists, Napier City Council is close to granting resource consent for the retailers to redevelop a site straddling Hastings Street and Marine Parade.

The proposal is to demolish existing buildings and construct a new two-storey building which will incorporate the historic former Odeon Theatre and Callinicos building – both of which have protected Group 1 heritage status.

These listed buildings were constructed a year after the disastrous 1931 earthquake levelled downtown Napier. Their special features, including leadlight windows and leylights in the Callinicos building and the Odeon Theatre’s Art Deco façade and roof, are to be retained.

The existing AMP building, constructed in the late 1980s, will be demolished.

The new design, developed by Queenstown-based architect John Blair for Paris Magdalinos Architects Ltd, provides two floors for Farmers’ shoppers, as well as office space and a loading dock for the department store. It also encompasses four ground floor tenancies for Farmers’ group-related stores.

Public access to Farmers will be from Hastings Street and the store will be equipped with Napier’s first escalator. On Marine Parade, the building is to have shop display windows, a landscaping strip and a variety of cladding materials – all aimed at enhancing the visual impact of its east elevation.

A truck dock, also to be located on the seaward side of the site, will have a mechanical turntable so vehicles won’t have to back into traffic travelling north along Marine Parade.

Farmers presently occupies rented premises with frontages onto Hastings and Emerson streets. The company purchased the new site, incorporating six titles, in mid-2010.

To assist in assessing Farmers’ application for resource consent, the Council engaged heritage advisor Jeremy Salmond. The application was deemed to be non-notified, with the New Zealand Historic Places Trust and Napier’s Art Deco Trust considered to be the only affected parties.

The Council undertook extensive consultation with the two trusts, and both have signed off on the proposal.

The New Zealand Historic Places Trust says the possibility of a Marine Parade entrance, built into the Farmers store design, is a proactive measure for taking advantage of a situation where tourism and retailing combine and work together.

By way of this, the trust is urging the Council give greater consideration to the desired future qualities of the city’s historic areas by changing the District Plan and, in particular, encouraging a vibrant seaside edge to the Art Deco Quarter – “especially where it fronts onto tourist hotspots”.