Kiwi Kids News

Planning has started for a giant tent to be erected on Queens Wharf for the Rugby World Cup on the site of one of two 98-year-old cargo sheds, both of which will be demolished.


The Government and the Auckland Regional Council, which took ownership of the wharf this month, have hired architectural firm Jasmax to design a temporary tent as "party central" for the cup tournament.

One source said the tent would be about 25m by 100m. It would be 12m tall at the highest point and would be on the site of Shed 10, on the eastern side of the wharf.

Plans for showcasing Auckland to the world next year have shrunk a long way from the $500 million waterfront stadium dreamed up by then-World Cup Minister Trevor Mallard in 2006.

Under that plan, Eden Park would have been dropped in favour of the new project as the city's premier stadium.

But the proposal was abandoned after a majority of Aucklanders rejected it.

Several proposals to open up the waterfront have since been put forward, but each has failed to satisfy all interests.

Heart of the City chief executive Alex Swney said that this year, 82 per cent of Aucklanders spoke out against a rushed $100 million plan for a hybrid cruise ship terminal and party centre.

"Today we learn that we are lurching towards the other end of the spectrum - an entirely temporary tent structure," he said.

"It had always been our hope that the legacy of the Rugby World Cup was going to be an interim step that would activate our waterfront by enabling us to get behind the Red Fence and experience it while we develop a masterplan for our waterfront."

The latest plan for Queens Wharf has alarmed interested parties, who believe the 1912 cargo sheds should remain until the Super City council developed a new masterplan for the Auckland waterfront.

A second source said demolition of the two cargo sheds would enable Rugby World Cup Minister Murray McCully to pursue the cruise ship terminal that Auckland mayors in February decided against because of the economic climate.

Mr McCully is overseas, and his office did not return calls yesterday.

But Auckland Regional Council chairman Mike Lee said Jasmax - which was part of last year's cancelled contest-winning design for Queens Wharf and a second cancelled cruise ship terminal design this year - had come up with an attractive temporary covered space for the cup tournament.