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Andrew Barnes: Kiwi entrepreneur outlines plan to revitalise Auckland's CBD · Best of Business

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from news Talks. It'd be
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  Speaker 1: follow this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio.
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  Speaker 2: Our entrepreneur Andrew Barnes says Auckland's CBD needs a dramatic makeover.
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  Speaker 2: He's come up with a list of ideas to help
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  Speaker 2: revitalize Auckland's central city and publish them and an opiate
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  Speaker 2: in the Herold. And Andrew is with us this.
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  Speaker 3: Evening, Kildo Andrew Cura Jack, how are you.
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  Speaker 2: I'm very well, thank you. So let's start off with
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  Speaker 2: the problem diagnosis. What is the problem with Auckland CBD.
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  Speaker 3: Well, Auckland's CBD is not really as thriving as it
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  Speaker 3: should be. There are lots of empty shops, the style
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  Speaker 3: of those shops are not necessarily as good as you
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  Speaker 3: might be. There aren't as many cafes, a lot of
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  Speaker 3: them have closed, and it really isn't that attractive a
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  Speaker 3: place to go and visit anymore.
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  Speaker 2: I reckon it's better than it was a few years ago.
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  Speaker 2: Do you agree with that?
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  Speaker 3: Oh, it's better than it was a few years ago,
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  Speaker 3: But yeah, it certainly is not.
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  Speaker 2: It is a huge dramatic different y. Yeah, yeah, no,
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  Speaker 2: I get there. So if it's feeling a bit tired,
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  Speaker 2: what do you think is at the core of improving
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  Speaker 2: the CBD, Well.
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  Speaker 3: It's this little bit chicken and egg. I think one
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  Speaker 3: of the problems is that we're not getting the number
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  Speaker 3: of people coming into the city anymore. Now that's primarily
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  Speaker 3: because you've got things like working from home. You've got
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  Speaker 3: people have repositioned where their businesses are. So if you
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  Speaker 3: have a look in the CBD, there are a lot
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  Speaker 3: of empty office blocks. So because we haven't got the
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  Speaker 3: people coming in, that means that they're not shopping, they're
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  Speaker 3: not attending the cafes, and so the problem is lack
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  Speaker 3: of population. Now that the and this of course is
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  Speaker 3: where its advocates think that the CRL will probably help us.
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  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, theoretically that should bring teams of thousands
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  Speaker 2: of people into the CBD that have assumes that they
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  Speaker 2: work in the CBD. And the point you maide in
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  Speaker 2: the helder is that actually having people living in the
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  Speaker 2: CBD would mean that the demand for retail and hospitality
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  Speaker 2: was there on the ground already.
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  Speaker 3: That's right. So what we've done is we've built because
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  Speaker 3: we hand effectively a lot of the decisions about how
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  Speaker 3: our city operates. In the day to the late lamented
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  Speaker 3: Auckland transport that was all about moving people around. It
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  Speaker 3: wasn't about why they came in. So if we're building
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  Speaker 3: something to bring people into the CBD, we have to
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  Speaker 3: ask the question is why are they making the trip?
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  Speaker 3: If they're not coming in to work, they've got to
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  Speaker 3: come in for leisure. So your choices either, you know,
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  Speaker 3: bring more bring more people into the CBD by building
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  Speaker 3: the things that they want to come and see, or alternatively,
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  Speaker 3: have the people lived there already.
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  Speaker 2: And so one of the suggestions you've made is that
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  Speaker 2: we have a big showcase attraction. You look at the
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  Speaker 2: likes of Mona in Tasmania, for example, an art gallery
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  Speaker 2: of true international esteem and a claim that people travel
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  Speaker 2: from around the world to come and see something like
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  Speaker 2: that in Central Auckland. But what might be some other
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  Speaker 2: options for getting people to live in the CBD. Are
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  Speaker 2: there policy changes we could make that might intensify some
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  Speaker 2: of the apartment blocks and things?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, well I think there is. I think you could
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  Speaker 3: look at the underutilized office box. I actually have an
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  Speaker 3: apartment in the center of CBD on top of an
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  Speaker 3: office block where I think there are two floors of
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  Speaker 3: that office block that have people in the offices. If
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  Speaker 3: you could actually then encourage people to develop those buildings.
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  Speaker 3: You've seen it with the cab building for example in
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  Speaker 3: to Earth Square. If you can actually convert those two apartments,
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  Speaker 3: you could actually do that of two types. One more
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  Speaker 3: luxury ones if you want, but actually more affordable housing.
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  Speaker 3: So what we're doing is creating intensive housing in the
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  Speaker 3: burbs to and then hoping to move people to the center.
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  Speaker 3: Why don't we just build them in the center? Yeah?
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  Speaker 2: Right, And again one of your suggestions, and this might
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  Speaker 2: be a bit controversial, is that councils have a user
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  Speaker 2: or lose it law, So basically they can put a
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  Speaker 2: bit of pressure on developers not just to land bank
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  Speaker 2: and sit on empty your under used properties, but do
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  Speaker 2: we actually get moving?
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  Speaker 3: Well, that's right. I think the Herald a few weeks
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  Speaker 3: ago that someone went around and counting them. I think
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  Speaker 3: there are fourteen in the center. But you think about
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  Speaker 3: how many development sites that have been left for years
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  Speaker 3: because we've not been able to find a way to
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  Speaker 3: utilize these things. Because actually the natural solution is to
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  Speaker 3: build an office block. But if you don't need an
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  Speaker 3: office block think about something else.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, right, How do you think developers would react to that?
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  Speaker 3: I sort of don't care. I mean, at the end
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  Speaker 3: of the day, land banking doesn't help the city, but
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  Speaker 3: it means if they can't think of a suitable way
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  Speaker 3: to utilize the property, then maybe they might sell it
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  Speaker 3: to somebody who wants to get on and do it.
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  Speaker 3: What I was suggesting in the article was a simple
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  Speaker 3: thing that, by the way, that if you do have
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  Speaker 3: a development site, you've got to turn it into a
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  Speaker 3: proper park for the intervening period rather than another car
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  Speaker 3: park or just an area of Tarmact wasteland.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I like that idea in theory. You know,
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  Speaker 2: if it would mean more public space, it would make
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  Speaker 2: it presumably more attractive for the people who do live
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  Speaker 2: in the CBD. And what would what would be the
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  Speaker 2: requirements of those public parks? Do you think in green space?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm thinking green space and let's face it, this
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  Speaker 3: time with real grass rather than I think we've built
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  Speaker 3: a few of these parks. Certainly the one at the
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  Speaker 3: bottom end of Queen Street across from us it's got
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  Speaker 3: you know, plastic grass. It's very enticing.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, make of the decisions that council and organ transport
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  Speaker 2: and policy makers have made when it comes to cars
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  Speaker 2: and the CBD.
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  Speaker 3: Look, at the end of the day, the difficulty is
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  Speaker 3: if you don't if you don't have solutions, and I
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  Speaker 3: think the recent situation with the concerts at Mount Smart
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  Speaker 3: where you know there is no public transport really available
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  Speaker 3: to move people around. So I can understand this argument,
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  Speaker 3: let us build public transport and then we make it
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  Speaker 3: easier for people to move around. But the problem is
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  Speaker 3: on public transport doesn't really work and it doesn't really
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  Speaker 3: go to the places that we want. Classic one was
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  Speaker 3: that concert You could get into the CBD, but nobody
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  Speaker 3: thought to connect the buses from the stadium with buses
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  Speaker 3: going to the North Shore. So until you actually have
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  Speaker 3: a comprehensive solution at the end of the day, Auckland
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  Speaker 3: is a city that needs cars.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And would you say that the balance
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  Speaker 2: has shifted in favor of pedestrians and cyclists too much
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  Speaker 2: in the CBD.
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  Speaker 3: I think it's shifted, yeah, too much. One of the
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  Speaker 3: difficulties and you can see it in the CRL paper.
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  Speaker 3: You could see it also in the one that they
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  Speaker 3: did on cycle ways that the council comes up or
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  Speaker 3: Open Transport came up with these fantastic things. I mean,
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  Speaker 3: this one has got you know the number of benefits
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  Speaker 3: that will accrue to Auckland, as my particular favorite is
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  Speaker 3: one point six billion in reliability benefits. So you're saying that, actually,
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  Speaker 3: if you just make the buses run in time, on
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  Speaker 3: the trains for time, we'd have actually picked up one
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  Speaker 3: point six billion without building a CRL. That's the problem.
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  Speaker 3: A lot of this is fabricated numbers. What we actually
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  Speaker 3: need is real world policies to understand how you bring
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  Speaker 3: people into a city, how you make them move around,
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  Speaker 3: not just simply playing to ideology.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, very interesting. Hey, thanks to Andrew. We always appreciate
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  Speaker 2: the way you consider these problems and appreciate your thoughts
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  Speaker 2: this evening. That is Andrew Barnes.
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