Built in 1926 on the corner of Colombo and Armagh Street, the Heritage-listed National Bank Building stands defi antly in front of Christchurch’s Convention Centre building site, restored and refurbished to her former glory, awaiting her new life.
Once earmarked for demolition to make way for the convention centre, the six-storey building’s life was saved when property consultancy and investment company, Studio D4, bought it in 2015.
Headed by Patrick Fontein and Paul Naylor, Studio D4 has been instrumental in a number of high profile post quake developments in Christchurch including the Innovation Precinct and another heritage project, Dux Central, in the former Twisted Hop building on Poplar Lane.
“We’d been looking at the heritage National Bank building at 779 Colombo Street for quite a few years,” says Patrick. “It’s just a beautiful stunning piece of classical Georgian architecture. “The symmetry of the building looks beautiful facing the park.”
Originally built as a chemist shop, the National Bank took possession of the building in latter years, operating it right up to the 2011 quakes.
Some initial seismic strengthening sometime prior to the quakes protected the building from the same fate as many of Christchurch’s old brick buildings.
Substantial further earthquake strengthening was done when Studio D4 took possession of the building, bringing it up to 100% of the new code. “We’ve stripped the inside layer of bricks out and put in a totally new concrete frame.
“There was a fair bit of structural damage on the front corner so we’ve put new steel frames in and braced it. We’ve also replaced the slate roof.”
Working with Heritage architect Tony Ussher, Studio D4 had access to the original consented drawings, enabling them to strip quite a lot of the building back, restoring it to its original 1926 form.
Patrick says that over the last 90 years a number of quite unsympathetic renovations had been made to the building.
“There were some pretty horrible ceilings in the upper floors so we’ve stripped them back, exposing and rendering all the old concrete beams in the building.
Substantial further earthquake strengthening was done when Studio D4 took possession of the building, bringing it up to 100% of the new code.
“A lot of the external glazing will be replaced on the street front, in keeping with the rest of the building, matching what’s above.”
Patrick says the level of finish going into the ground and mezzanine floors will be very high but in sympathy with the original building.
“We thought there might have been 30 – 40 people who would come and have a look. In a three hour period we had 430 people come through.”
The basement has been strengthened, waterproofed and made storage ready. The top three floors have been divided into A-Grade offices with high quality modern bathroom facilities.
A new larger lift has replaced the original. With options to sell or lease the upper levels, Patrick says the building will be predominantly leased and he is about to start looking for tenants.
“The ground and mezzanine floors will be used as a high-end restaurant/bar on a 15-year lease. I cannot tell you who it is because they don’t want it out in the market until closer to opening.”
With so few of the classical old buildings left in the city, Patrick and Paul both felt they had quite a responsibility to get the restoration right, taking it back to its original classical form.
“There are so many people who liked this old building. We had an open day just to let the public know how the refurbishment of the upper levels was coming.
“We thought there might have been 30 – 40 people who would come and have a look. In a three hour period we had 430 people come through.”
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