February 25, 2017 10:00am by David Farrar

A great idea for Centreport

Quake-hit CentrePort’s should be repurposed as a transport and entertainment hub, a Wellington developer says.

Ian Cassels has called for the port, which suffered substantial damage after the 7.8-magnitude Kaikoura earthquake on November 14, to become like Oriental Bay with bars and transport interchanges.

A great idea, I have long advocated.

Cassels described the quake as a hidden blessing, allowing Wellingtonians to re-think how the city and the port were best aligned.

“I’m standing in my building looking at the containers on the eastern edge of our port, and nothing could be more inappropriate for the other half of our inner harbour,” he said.

If possible, I’d move the container operation to Seaview.

“It should have magnificent stuff going on. It should look a bit like Oriental Bay. There should be entertainment and bars and water taxis should scoot across there late at night to other parts of the Harbour.”

Water taxis from the port land to Oriental Bay to Shelley Bay. Love it.