September 17, 2024 • 7 mins
Redevelopment plans for the Oriental Bay band rotunda have been scrapped - so what does the future hold for the site?
And there have been issues with vandals targeting Wellington's new parking meters - what is the council doing to prevent damage?
Newstalk ZB and NZ Herald reporter joined Nick Mills to answer those questions and more.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Wellington Mornings podcast with Nick Mills
from News Talk said B taking the pulse of the city,
the Capital Letter on News Talks ed B.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Georgina Campbell's away this week, so we've got someone that's
jumped off the bench, running onto the Court's going to
talk to us News Talks HEADB and new Zeald Herald
reporter Ethan Minera.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
Good morning, Ethan, morning neck. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
It's great to have you here. Now KB broke your
story a little bit. I mean, I know it's your
story and we were going to announce it live on
this show. It was going to be our big breaking news.
But I've been telling everybody that a brewery has signed
a deal or was about to sign a deal and
was looking at the band Retunder. Now you've got the
story that actually the deal's all now off the table.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
Yeah, so it's looking like a bit of an uncertain
future for the band Retunda. This is the iconic building
in Oriental Bay. It used to be home to the
Fisherman's Table, which I know you've been mentioning this morning,
as well as the Blue Water bart and Grill. Now
you may remember in twenty two well, it had to
close its doors. It sort of fell into disappear The
building was a bit run down. There were the council
seat at the time. The concrete slab between the top
(01:14):
and bottom level had some issues, as well as foundation
issues due to the sea. The building's owned by Wellington
City Council. It's also earthquake prone and heritage protected. So
in twenty nineteen the council chose a developer, Kiops Holding,
owned by Morris Clark, who has sort of a big
portfolio of heritage restorations, to develop the site. It was
supposed to be done in twenty twenty one, but in
(01:35):
twenty twenty two it was reported that that sort of
wasn't going to plan. They were struggling to find a
tenant for the site. And I've been sniffing around the
past couple months to try to get an update with
what's happening, and yeah, we can reveal that.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
He's walked away. Basically, Morris Clarks walked away.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
The council and the developer have both said that it
was a mutual agreement. It wasn't working. They were struggling
to find a tenant and so the yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Yeah, I wonder I mean, this is me speaking, not you,
But I just wonder how hard they really did try
and find a tenant, because I know I personally spoke
to Morris once and then he might maybe he didn't
like me, but it seemed to seem to go nowhere quickly,
and I wonder whether, Yeah, he normally does very good
developments and he's restored some of the wonderful old buildings
in Wetrington and he's a great Wellingtonian. So that's disappointing. No,
(02:20):
nothing's been said by the council what they're going to do.
No one knows what the future holds.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
Yeah, or a council spokesperson told me that quote. The
council is now in discussions with other parties with regards
to developing the site, but who knows. It's been sitting
empty there for years and I think, you know, as
Morris was sort of telling me, it would be hard
to find someone to develop that site. You know a
lot of money is needed to strengthen it and bring
it up to scratch.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
And the problem is that they really need to put
the council owner. You really need the council to dip
in their pockets, and they're not going to do that
right now. I have to been told by the Prime
Minister not to spend any money, are.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
They Yeah, and we know the challenges that the hospitality
is seen are facing, so asking someone to front up
that amount of cash.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
No one from, No one from hospitalities in front up
that cash. But if the council built it, they may
go in as a tenant. There's a positive story for Wellington.
There's going to be a big New Year's Eve party
this year, Ethan, what do you know about that?
Speaker 3 (03:07):
Yeah, it's some real good news for Courtney Place business owners.
I've been covering this one for a couple of months
now when I first caught whims that businesses along Courtney
Place had been pitching a New Year's Eve street party.
They want to close down the street for New Year's Eve,
helps people there, sort of reminiscent of the old Lions
Street festivals, get people in and get a bit feral.
It's been championed by the group Courtney Place Precinct. There
(03:29):
are a bunch of operators on the stretch and they're
doing it because they want to support the businesses there
that have been having a hard time, but also bring
back the liveliness to Courtney Place, they reckon it's lost
its mojo, and so the council has finally agreed last week,
so they're going to close off Courtney Place to vehicles
between Tory Street and Cambridge Terrace as well as Blear
and Allen Streets from six am on December thirty first
(03:51):
to six am on January first.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
You know what ours the actual party? I mean, you
know more about this than me. I'm not part of
that group of people and I know nothing about it,
So you're educating me. I mean, I know listeners are saying,
well Nick must know about it, he's involved down there.
I don't know anything about it. So what ours is
it going to go? What's ours? Is a part to go?
Is theyre going to go to all three or is
it going to go to twelve or what?
Speaker 3 (04:09):
I think it will be going past midnight From what
I understand talking to the hospital operators down there, they
do want it to sort of ramp up throughout the night,
so it'll be family friendly at the start, you know,
bringing people from the waterfront from other celebrations, and then
as the night goes on, live music will ramp up.
They'll hopefully have big celebrations Towards the end of the night,
I was talking to one of the operators down there
(04:29):
who were saying, they want to have you know, circus acts.
They can have live music stages. They were saying, so
mentioned of someone playing the bagpipes and things. So it
looks like it'll be all on.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
What a great idea, What a great idea for But
a positive news out there, Ethan, you're bringing positive, let's
be positive, not so positive. We know the council rolled
out a bunch of new parking meters across the city,
but now they're making a change to them. Now tell
us the story behind this, because the story will infuriate
a few of our listeners.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
So these new parking meters sort of cropped up last
year and sort of raised some questions. I remember we
were talking about it in the newsroom, asking where they
had sort of come from and what the plan was
for them. The other new solar powered parking meters that
also pay by plate so you don't need to put
in that annoying little number underneath your car. So the
solar powered pat by plate, and they also bilingual so
you can pay for your parking interreo Maori as well
as English, so they're pretty flash And then it came
(05:17):
about because I was actually driving around the city a
couple of weeks ago and noticed that a whole bunch
of them seemed to be smashed up. So I went
to the police and went to the council and sort
of asked what's going on here, and they confirmed that, yes,
there was a bit of a vandalism spree where one
man allegedly smashed eighty one of the council's new parking.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
They to interrupt on they did keep it, and he's
been caught.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
He's been charged with several counts of intentional damage that
he's the issues now before the court, so we can't
really speak about that. But all the solar panels atop
the parking meters were smashed, which has now caused the council.
And this is what I think is the interesting part.
They've now decided to put those solar panels up higher,
so they're going to be installing them on you three
meter high posts to keep them out of reach from
(05:58):
any vandals in the future.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Oh, that's incredible, another spend. Are they still going to
leave the today O stuff in there? Yep.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
The parking meters will stay operating the same as they
have been. Dove maintained that they still are working even
though they're smashed up. But you'll be glad to know
this is being paid for by an insurance claim, so
it's not coming out of the rates bill, which is good.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
Now.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
I mean, you know you're a well educated young European
from christ Church. What's your today? I like, can you
give us a bit of toral?
Speaker 3 (06:24):
I would like to know more today. I don't know heaps, but.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
You know it is Mari speaking week, so I'll be
You've got to come up with subthing. What are you
going to do? What are you going to say? What's
your farewell going to be? What's I put you on
the spot?
Speaker 3 (06:36):
You put me on the spot of it here? Well,
good Nune he thanks for having me neck.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
Thanks thanks for doing the mahy amazing.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
I appreciate the mate. We've had a good hui.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Yeah, we have had a good huy. Ethan's a great
young reporter for news talks. There be in the here
a lot of those scoopy stories he gets and he
works very hard and I enjoy working with him. Is
a young one of the young bucks of our organization
and you've got to support young people. How is your
first radio interview with me?
Speaker 3 (07:01):
Like, oh, that's great. I've enjoyed it. Thinks we're nervous,
yeah a little bit.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Ah, you're fantastic either, Vaniera.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
For more from Wellington Mornings with Nick Mills, listen live
to news talks It'd be Wellington from nine am weekdays,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio
You're listening to the Wellington Mornings podcast with Nick Mills
from News Talk said B taking the pulse of the city,
the Capital Letter on News Talks ed B.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Georgina Campbell's away this week, so we've got someone that's
jumped off the bench, running onto the Court's going to
talk to us News Talks HEADB and new Zeald Herald
reporter Ethan Minera.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
Good morning, Ethan, morning neck. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
It's great to have you here. Now KB broke your
story a little bit. I mean, I know it's your
story and we were going to announce it live on
this show. It was going to be our big breaking news.
But I've been telling everybody that a brewery has signed
a deal or was about to sign a deal and
was looking at the band Retunder. Now you've got the
story that actually the deal's all now off the table.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
Yeah, so it's looking like a bit of an uncertain
future for the band Retunda. This is the iconic building
in Oriental Bay. It used to be home to the
Fisherman's Table, which I know you've been mentioning this morning,
as well as the Blue Water bart and Grill. Now
you may remember in twenty two well, it had to
close its doors. It sort of fell into disappear The
building was a bit run down. There were the council
seat at the time. The concrete slab between the top
(01:14):
and bottom level had some issues, as well as foundation
issues due to the sea. The building's owned by Wellington
City Council. It's also earthquake prone and heritage protected. So
in twenty nineteen the council chose a developer, Kiops Holding,
owned by Morris Clark, who has sort of a big
portfolio of heritage restorations, to develop the site. It was
supposed to be done in twenty twenty one, but in
(01:35):
twenty twenty two it was reported that that sort of
wasn't going to plan. They were struggling to find a
tenant for the site. And I've been sniffing around the
past couple months to try to get an update with
what's happening, and yeah, we can reveal that.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
He's walked away. Basically, Morris Clarks walked away.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
The council and the developer have both said that it
was a mutual agreement. It wasn't working. They were struggling
to find a tenant and so the yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Yeah, I wonder I mean, this is me speaking, not you,
But I just wonder how hard they really did try
and find a tenant, because I know I personally spoke
to Morris once and then he might maybe he didn't
like me, but it seemed to seem to go nowhere quickly,
and I wonder whether, Yeah, he normally does very good
developments and he's restored some of the wonderful old buildings
in Wetrington and he's a great Wellingtonian. So that's disappointing. No,
(02:20):
nothing's been said by the council what they're going to do.
No one knows what the future holds.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
Yeah, or a council spokesperson told me that quote. The
council is now in discussions with other parties with regards
to developing the site, but who knows. It's been sitting
empty there for years and I think, you know, as
Morris was sort of telling me, it would be hard
to find someone to develop that site. You know a
lot of money is needed to strengthen it and bring
it up to scratch.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
And the problem is that they really need to put
the council owner. You really need the council to dip
in their pockets, and they're not going to do that
right now. I have to been told by the Prime
Minister not to spend any money, are.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
They Yeah, and we know the challenges that the hospitality
is seen are facing, so asking someone to front up
that amount of cash.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
No one from, No one from hospitalities in front up
that cash. But if the council built it, they may
go in as a tenant. There's a positive story for Wellington.
There's going to be a big New Year's Eve party
this year, Ethan, what do you know about that?
Speaker 3 (03:07):
Yeah, it's some real good news for Courtney Place business owners.
I've been covering this one for a couple of months
now when I first caught whims that businesses along Courtney
Place had been pitching a New Year's Eve street party.
They want to close down the street for New Year's Eve,
helps people there, sort of reminiscent of the old Lions
Street festivals, get people in and get a bit feral.
It's been championed by the group Courtney Place Precinct. There
(03:29):
are a bunch of operators on the stretch and they're
doing it because they want to support the businesses there
that have been having a hard time, but also bring
back the liveliness to Courtney Place, they reckon it's lost
its mojo, and so the council has finally agreed last week,
so they're going to close off Courtney Place to vehicles
between Tory Street and Cambridge Terrace as well as Blear
and Allen Streets from six am on December thirty first
(03:51):
to six am on January first.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
You know what ours the actual party? I mean, you
know more about this than me. I'm not part of
that group of people and I know nothing about it,
So you're educating me. I mean, I know listeners are saying,
well Nick must know about it, he's involved down there.
I don't know anything about it. So what ours is
it going to go? What's ours? Is a part to go?
Is theyre going to go to all three or is
it going to go to twelve or what?
Speaker 3 (04:09):
I think it will be going past midnight From what
I understand talking to the hospital operators down there, they
do want it to sort of ramp up throughout the night,
so it'll be family friendly at the start, you know,
bringing people from the waterfront from other celebrations, and then
as the night goes on, live music will ramp up.
They'll hopefully have big celebrations Towards the end of the night,
I was talking to one of the operators down there
(04:29):
who were saying, they want to have you know, circus acts.
They can have live music stages. They were saying, so
mentioned of someone playing the bagpipes and things. So it
looks like it'll be all on.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
What a great idea, What a great idea for But
a positive news out there, Ethan, you're bringing positive, let's
be positive, not so positive. We know the council rolled
out a bunch of new parking meters across the city,
but now they're making a change to them. Now tell
us the story behind this, because the story will infuriate
a few of our listeners.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
So these new parking meters sort of cropped up last
year and sort of raised some questions. I remember we
were talking about it in the newsroom, asking where they
had sort of come from and what the plan was
for them. The other new solar powered parking meters that
also pay by plate so you don't need to put
in that annoying little number underneath your car. So the
solar powered pat by plate, and they also bilingual so
you can pay for your parking interreo Maori as well
as English, so they're pretty flash And then it came
(05:17):
about because I was actually driving around the city a
couple of weeks ago and noticed that a whole bunch
of them seemed to be smashed up. So I went
to the police and went to the council and sort
of asked what's going on here, and they confirmed that, yes,
there was a bit of a vandalism spree where one
man allegedly smashed eighty one of the council's new parking.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
They to interrupt on they did keep it, and he's
been caught.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
He's been charged with several counts of intentional damage that
he's the issues now before the court, so we can't
really speak about that. But all the solar panels atop
the parking meters were smashed, which has now caused the council.
And this is what I think is the interesting part.
They've now decided to put those solar panels up higher,
so they're going to be installing them on you three
meter high posts to keep them out of reach from
(05:58):
any vandals in the future.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Oh, that's incredible, another spend. Are they still going to
leave the today O stuff in there? Yep.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
The parking meters will stay operating the same as they
have been. Dove maintained that they still are working even
though they're smashed up. But you'll be glad to know
this is being paid for by an insurance claim, so
it's not coming out of the rates bill, which is good.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
Now.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
I mean, you know you're a well educated young European
from christ Church. What's your today? I like, can you
give us a bit of toral?
Speaker 3 (06:24):
I would like to know more today. I don't know heaps, but.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
You know it is Mari speaking week, so I'll be
You've got to come up with subthing. What are you
going to do? What are you going to say? What's
your farewell going to be? What's I put you on
the spot?
Speaker 3 (06:36):
You put me on the spot of it here? Well,
good Nune he thanks for having me neck.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
Thanks thanks for doing the mahy amazing.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
I appreciate the mate. We've had a good hui.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Yeah, we have had a good huy. Ethan's a great
young reporter for news talks. There be in the here
a lot of those scoopy stories he gets and he
works very hard and I enjoy working with him. Is
a young one of the young bucks of our organization
and you've got to support young people. How is your
first radio interview with me?
Speaker 3 (07:01):
Like, oh, that's great. I've enjoyed it. Thinks we're nervous,
yeah a little bit.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Ah, you're fantastic either, Vaniera.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
For more from Wellington Mornings with Nick Mills, listen live
to news talks It'd be Wellington from nine am weekdays,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio
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