July start date for Quay Street upgrade

Auckland City has accepted Dominion Constructors Limited’s $4.1 million tender and work to transform Quay Street into an attractive, high quality, public space will begin early next month.

The work includes improved lighting, artworks, the addition of more street furniture, the planting of about 70 Pohutakawa trees and reducing the traffic lane widths to 3.0 and 3.2 metres to allow the footpaths to be widened on the north side of the street.

The contract begins on 14 July 2004, with stage one of the work due for completion by the end of March 2005.

Chairperson of Auckland City’s Recreation and Events Committee, Councillor Scott Milne, says the first stage of the work includes both sides of Quay Street from the proposed Arena site in the east to the Eastern Viaduct in the west, except for the area between the eastern side of the new ferry terminal and eastern side of Britomart Place.

“It makes sense to complete the work on this stage at a later date to tie in with work on the Britomart above ground project,” he says.

The Quay Street upgrade is part of Auckland City’s Auckland CBD Into the future strategy to revitalise Auckland’s central business district (CBD) into one of the world’s most vibrant and dynamic business and cultural centres.

Dominion Constructors Limited have a proven track record in delivering high quality street environments. Recent examples of their work include the public space at the Viaduct and Britomart project.

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Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>