What’s a city without people? It’s empty, like Christchurch after the quakes. All that is changing as businesses and their teams head back inside the Four Avenues and bring life to lunchtime streets.

First up, let’s celebrate how far we’ve come. It’s six years since the last central-city cordon came down in June 2013 and since then growth has been phenomenal. Hundreds of office staff from the BNZ Centre and ANZ Centre bring life to the surrounding streets every lunchtime. Thousands of public servants log on and off every workday in the Justice and Emergency Services or Health precincts. And all those shiny new office blocks between the Avon River and Hagley Park are now filled with lawyers and accountants. That’s a lot of people who need to meet, eat and stay caffeinated.

There are now 40,000 people working inside the Four Avenues during the week, more than 16,000 of whom work in an office. The rest are mainly in retail or hospitality, giving the central city a warm, welcoming face. ChristchurchNZ, the city’s economic development agency, wants to get the total to 60,000 over the next 10 years, up 10,000 on pre-earthquake levels.

Many of the slick new offices don’t look much like the old ones. Developers, designers and managers have been inspired to not just replace but to reinvent the spaces. No longer is the boss in a box in the corner; instead a new workplace culture of less hierarchy and more collaboration has become the norm, backed up by a change in furniture and layout to hot desks, bean bags and breakout spaces.

Smaller spaces are beginning to emerge between the big corporate footprints. Some of the more exciting ones are in former industrial buildings that have had a modern makeover. The trio behind shared workspace developer Qb Studios – Alex Brennan, Mike Fisher and Tom Harding – have an impressive track record of repurposing the old for the new, turning outdated commercial or industrial buildings into vibrant, flexible office environments.

They see their spaces as new “town squares” where businesses and people work side by side. The shared reception areas, meeting rooms and kitchens are facilities small businesses could not afford on their own.

Europlan is another company that has been heavily involved in popularising the concept of co-working spaces through its collab with industry trailblazer BizDojo Christchurch. Helen Dennis, Europlan’s Christchurch-based national workplace strategy manager, sees a bright future for the co-working industry. Why? “People love community and they love connection,” she says.

Europlan uses the same recipe for co-working spaces as it does for corporate clients – “People want to socialise, they want to create and be collaborative, and they need to be able to focus on specific tasks,” Helen says.

Both the Christchurch City Council and development agency ChristchurchNZ are working hard to get people to return to the central city to “live, work and play”. Carolyn Ingles, head of Urban Regeneration, Urban Design and Heritage at the city council, says those who work in offices are a big part of this as they head out for lunch or meet up for a drink at day’s end.

It’s not only lunch bars and watering holes either. There’s no clearer sign of a community re-emerging in the city than the opening of childcare centres catering for the mums and dads in those offices. Millie’s House Early Learning Centre is one of the first. It has set up in the old Family Courts building on Armagh Street after the Peebles Group transformed one of the city’s few surviving Gothic wonders into a modern, purpose-built facility. Fletcher Living’s One Central residential development is also bringing a big boost to the number of people living in the central city, which will only add to the renewed sense of community.

Meanwhile, the Canterbury Employers Chamber of Commerce is doing its bit, helping those members ready to make the move by hooking them up with business owners who have already done so, as well as providing direct advice and support.

Chamber chief executive Leeann Watson (pictured above) says the main feedback from businesses that have returned is that they are finally able to move forward as an organisation, with a fresh focus
on growing the business and attracting customers.

Property management and leasing agency CBRE hasn’t looked back since it moved into a new build on the former Stewart Dawson site on the corner of Cashel and High streets. Managing director Tim Rookes says one of the big changes is the way the team has been invigorated by the “genuine energy” that comes from being in the heart of the city again. The daily routine of getting a coffee has spawned impromptu client meetings, and the new premises have given the team a renewed sense of pride that Tim is sure will lift business performance.

The Chamber’s Leeann applauds the way developers have made the most of the opportunity to do more than just rebuild the old. New design ideas, building methods and smart technology ensure these buildings are future-proofed. “It has given us the ability to build a new city.” she says.

THINKING SMALL

While the kind of shared developments championed by Qb Studios and Europlan provide spaces for some small businesses, critics point to a dearth of small-scale buildings that give a business a chance to establish its own identity and branding. Tobin Smith, of CoLab Architecture, says that before the earthquakes, many Christchurch streets, including Colombo, Manchester and High Street, were lined with two- and three-storey Victorian buildings that were home to many tenants that needed only a small workspace. “This finer grain of development gave tenants a strong individual identity,” he says. Photographer Stephen Goodenough is just that kind of business. Before the quakes he was living the dream – 9 Liverpool Street, a two-storey Art Deco former warehouse, was his studio and home. Not only that but he and his wife owned the building. On the ground floor was car parking and his photographic studio; upstairs was a massive, New York-style loft apartment (pictured). At the weekend their children would ride their bikes through Cashel Mall in their Spider-Man costumes. The building held up well enough to the quakes but not to the bureaucrats, who put it on the list for compulsory acquisition. The Goodenoughs are back in the suburbs now and Stephen shares a studio in Addington. He’s looked at moving his business back into the central city but has found the rents prohibitive. The council is aware that a big corporate office space is not the answer for all businesses. It points to an emerging range of smaller business premises around the fringes of the central city’s core. and sees the upper floors of premises along High Street, Manchester Street, the South Frame and Colombo Street offering further potential.

Read more

Tim Rookes, managing director of CBRE, tells Cityscape how returning to the central city has given his team's energy levels a real boost.

We find out from Alex Brennan, one of the masterminds behind Qb Studios, about converting outdated commercial or industrial buildings into modern, flexible office spaces.

Helen Dennis, from Europlan, explains how office design has come a long way from 'the boss in a box in the corner' and describes how layout can influence workplace culture and productivity.

Millie's House Early Learning Centre has moved into the old Family Courts building in a clear sign of a central-city resurgence.

Joining the dots between big developments is a necessity for Christchurch's emerging central city says Tobin Smith of CoLab Architecture.