Source: Radio New Zealand
The renovation of St James Theatre in February this year. RNZ / Marika Khabazi
There are plans for a new basement venue at Auckland’s St James theatre after builders unearthed extra space during renovations.
The heritage theatre which opened in 1928 has been closed since a fire in 2007.
Work is underway to re-open the theatre for its 100th anniversary in 2028.
Steve Bielby of Auckland Notable Properties Trust, said the new basement area would host everything from live music to smaller-scale performances.
He explained how the proposal for a new basement venue came about.
“The building had existing basements in the north and in the south and part of the fire code is that we had to link those two basements so that in a fire you could escape through more than one way.”
Steve Bielby says the main structural work on the theatre is just starting to commence. RNZ / Marika Khabazi
When the costings were done it was found it would be cheaper to remove the material completely to create a massive basement in the theatre rather than trying to create a tunnel, he said.
That had been done and “it’s created this amazing venue space,” he said.
“We’re designing it for up to 1200 people and that would be in a sort of concert-type mode but it could be used for everything from rehearsals to corporate events to bands – it’s a black box essentially, an empty black box, so everything comes in and it can be used for anything.”
Watch: Perlina Lau from Culture 101 spoke to Steve Bielby about the St James renovations in February:
He said it had been a long process to get this far.
“It’s been sort of an 11-year restoration journey, it started at advocacy and now we’re into physical works, but it’s also a little about urban regeneration in that area, you know mid towns have a tough time and it’s great to see that Aotea arts quarter hopefully come to life.”
But the restoration was going well and all the asbestos had been removed from the building and the new electrical system was in, he said.
“The main structural work is just starting to commence, so all the scaffolding’s going up around the building at the moment.”
Given the building’s age there were a lot of challenges in terms of restoring it, he said.
“A lot of that fine arts stuff is outside the normal construction envelope. But I guess they’re challenges but they’re also the exciting bit because you’ve got to find ways to solve them.”
Adding the basement venue was cost neutral but it removed some risks, he said.
“So building a tunnel’s actually quite challenging, where as just excavating down and removing the material is a lot more of a calculable exercise.”
He said they were on track and “2028 we’ll open those doors”.
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
