"Dr. Anna Crighton, Chair of Christchurch Heritage Limited, currently restoring the former Trinity Church on the corner of Worcester and Manchester Streets, is proud to announce that it has saved yet another listed heritage building for the central city. Shands Emporium, formerly of 88 Hereford Street, has recently been purchased and will sit perfectly facing Manchester Street beside the Trinity Church."

The Media Release is as follows:

 

MEDIA RELEASE AND PHOTO OPPORTUNITY

EMBARGOED UNTIL 12 noon TUESDAY 16 JUNE 2015

SHANDS EMPORIUM FINDS A NEW HOME IN THE CBD

 

PHOTO AND MEDIA OPPORTUNITY:
Tuesday 16 June 2015, 12 noon, in front of Shands on The Terrace site.

Dr Anna Crighton, Chair of Christchurch Heritage Limited, will hand over the purchase price of $1 for Shands Emporium to Antony Gough, Managing Director of Hereford Holdings Limited.

Antony Gough the owner of the Shands Emporium Building will sign a Sale and Purchase Agreement with Christchurch Heritage Limited at the same time. He said ‘This is a great result for this building and for heritage in general’.

Dr. Anna Crighton, Chair of Christchurch Heritage Limited, currently restoring the former Trinity Church on the corner of Worcester and Manchester Streets, is proud to announce that it has saved yet another listed heritage building for the central city. Shands Emporium, formerly of 88 Hereford Street, has recently been purchased and will sit perfectly facing Manchester Street beside the Trinity Church.

Crighton said ‘that as the city changes there is the danger that even more historic buildings may be thoughtlessly and needlessly destroyed. Christchurch Heritage Limited is demonstrating sheer grit and determination to effectively protect and revitalise what heritage they can in the CBD’.

Crighton said ‘Shands, built in 1860, is Christchurch’s oldest wooden commercial building left in the central business district and its future in the central city was in peril.  It is the last building of its kind in the CBD.  Shand’s is typical of buildings from the early years of colonisation. It is listed as a Group 2 on the Christchurch District Plan and a Category 1 by Heritage New Zealand’.

Antony Gough agrees that the siting of Shands not far from its original site is an excellent outcome. He wishes to pay tribute to Peter Croft who kept the retention of the building alive. ‘It was through Peter and his continued interest’, he said, ‘that maintained the hope that a suitable home would be found for the building’.

The move needs to be expedited quickly though. Gough said ‘We have a well driller working on site at this moment and they have got down 23m of the 38m for the first well. We need to get Shands off site before they get too close with the next three wells they will be putting down on our site’.

The complicated issues around the move (traffic management, craning the building over the tram wires on the corner of Hereford and Colombo Streets, liaising with road works in the area, health and safety compliance, resource consent etc) are being managed by Chris Hausmann, Director, Christchurch Heritage Limited. The move will be done at a quiet time of night, probably between midnight and 6am, when all transactions are completed and in place – around 2-3 weeks time.

 

For further information please contact:

Dr. Anna Crighton                                      Antony Gough

Chair                                                              Managing Director

Christchurch Heritage Limited                The Terrace

021 1844 689                                               027 433 1428

 

Chris Hausmann

Director

Christchurch Heritage Limited

027 279 0005

 

BACKGROUND:

It is not the first time that Shands has been endangered with annihilation. In the late 1970s the New Zealand Post Office planned a new telephone exchange in Hereford Street on land incorporating Shands Emporium site. Shands was earmarked for demolition and this resulted in a petition protesting its threatened existence being signed by several thousand people. In May 1981 the Ministerial requirement to designate the land was uplifted. The building was reprieved.

Shands Emporium has been in Gough Ownership for over 75 years or around half its lifetime. Antony Gough says that it would have been all too easy to have demolished it several times during this period but that he and his family have been determined to save it.