A floating bar in the iMax building? WTF?
I've seen the renovation plans for Auckland's Metro Centre - and they're INSANE.
Things are desperate at Queen Street’s iMax building. Tenants have left, shops sit abandoned and the building is in disrepair. I’ve discussed those issues in part one and part two of my investigation - if you haven’t already, go read those first. Today, we’re talking about the future, and several different architects have been asked to overhaul the complex. I’ve seen the designs - they’re big, bold and a little bit crazy. Let’s go…
Your Uber driver drops you off near Aotea Square. You get out and take a short walk across the concourse to a shiny new elevator that takes you up to your destination in a matter of silent seconds. Swoosh.
You step out into a modern, functioning, metallic hub bathed in neon red light strips oozing extreme cool. As you begin walking down a skinny walkway to take a seat at a bar, you feel like you’ve been been transported to another time, another place.
It feels like you’re in a movie.
In front of you, a barman wearing a tuxedo asks you what you’d like to drink. You don’t order a beer, because ordering a beer from a man in a tux is just wrong. So you make like James Bond and order a vodka martini. As you wait, you kill time by gazing at the space around you.
It’s then that you realise you’re suspended in mid-air. The entire platform you’re on is hovering over empty space. You can feel it wobble a little whenever anyone shifts in their stool, or the barman starts mixing your drink. The floor might even slowly be spinning around.
You think: “This is fucking nuts.”
Yes, my friend, it is very fucking nuts. You’ve chosen to a have a drink at a bar suspended in the middle of the atrium of what used to be the Sky Force Entertainment Centre on Auckland’s Queen Street. The broken video screens, crappy carpet, spiral staircase and pieced-together walls have been replaced by something thoroughly modern and retro-futuristic with stars in the sky and neon hues everywhere you look.
Nearby, you can take selfies in a graffiti alley, peruse a digital art gallery and go skiing in an alpine simulator.
You know what else you can do? Get a drink at a floating fucking bar.
Someone thinks this should happen. It’s true.
Look - here’s the mock-up as proof…
This, clearly, is ridiculous, an architect gone, perhaps, slightly rogue. Yet it’s part of an actual, honest-to-God, real life design for the renovation and rejuvenation of Auckland’s iMax building, one of many ideas provided by several Auckland architectural firms.
Whats going on?
It’s been a couple of weeks since I wrote about what’s happening at 291-297 Queen Street, so let’s catch up on where we’re at in this bonkers investigation. The Metro Centre used to be the central pillar of Auckland’s entertainment scene, but, these days, it’s now 22 years old, and at least 12 years overdue for a complete overhaul.
The need for change is desperate. It’s in a sorry state: Burger King and Starbucks are boarded up, the mini golf course remains closed, the entire food court is abandoned, and just two of 10 or so restaurants remain.
The carpet is old, the walls are stained, the toilets are locked, and, according to one of my Twitter followers, insects may be taking over one of the toilets.
The rocket ship elevator, I’m happy to report, remains intact. But who knows for how long.
In part one of my investigation, I covered what it was like walking around this sorry situation on a sad Saturday night. I saw just a handful of people - even when Event Cinemas, Metro Lanes bowling and GameOn were all open.
In part two, I met Brad Jacobs, the owner of The Coffee Club who recently had to advise his iMax building franchisees to terminate their lease over impossible post-Covid conditions. He claimed the building’s landlord raised rent 10 per cent during lockdown. Ouch.
Today, in part three, we’re going to look at the people who want to fix all of this. Several Auckland architectural firms have been engaged to design the building’s renovations. All of those architects can’t be cheap. I’d love to ask the building’s owner, James Kwak, which one, if any, he’s going to choose, but he won’t respond to my messages.
So today I’m going to choose one of these proposals to discuss in a little more detail. It’s from RCG, a Parnell-based firm that’s supplied what I would consider to be the most far-flung, out-there proposal.
I kind of dig it.
A thoroughly modern retrofit
Look at this: it’s the front entrance, the circular tower that used to house Starbucks and the Planet Hollywood gift shop but is now boarded up and padlocked.
It’s been re-imagined as a proper front entrance, the kind that the building not only needs, but deserves. It’s clean, open, welcoming and enticing.
I want to go inside this place!
The proposal promises a “unified” and “singular experience” so whoever put this together seems to get just how tough the job at hand is. The iMax building is full of awkward levels and weird spots and sky paths and angled alleyways that all need to be linked up. It’s also fully enmeshed with Auckland Council building The Civic, and you can’t touch that, so you need to be careful.
Again, I’m no architect, but this seems to do that quite well. Here’s the foyer…
Here’s the second level…
And here’s the food level…
I have to admit, I like it. The red carpet stairs would make everyone feel like a celebrity walking into the Academy Awards. That front facade is bold, epic and eye-catching, more like a gaming console or something you’d see in New York’s Time Square than in central Auckland. There’s a nod to the building’s kitschy late ‘90s-early 2000s origins.
More importantly, it’s bright, it’s lit up, it stands out, and it draws you in.
I would take a front entrance that looks like this…
… over this …
… any day of the week.
Anyway, all those screen grabs are from a properly presented video. If you want to watch the whole presentation for yourself, you can do that here (it’s on LinkedIn and has 18 likes). I thoroughly recommend you do. It was posted just eight months ago, which means someone, somewhere, is thinking about doing this. (I asked RCG for comment, and got no response.)
But I’ve watched this video at least 40 times now, and I see new things every time.
I can’t help but imagine what it would be like to see Auckland’s iMax building come alive again, like this, to watch it transform into a glowing neon-red hub, opening up out onto Aotea Square while linking up the Auckland Town Hall, the Aotea Centre and The Civic.
It would, once again, give people an actual real reason to visit Queen Street.
Looking at this video made me happy.
Then I remembered the last time I was there, buying my kids an ice cream at Oko Dessert Kitchen, eating them as we leaned over the balcony while looking down into the iMax building’s abandoned food court. It was dimly lit, deserted and messy, with stuff scattered through food service areas as if whoever used to be there left in a hurry.
And that made me sad.
Is that not enough iMax news for you?
I recently spoke to legendary Radio NZ broadcaster Karyn Hay about all my iMax building reporting. I was a bit freaked out about it! You can listen to that quivering wreck of an interview here. As always, if you have any info, tips, rumours, thoughts, opinions or rants to express, feel free to add them in the comments below, or send me a private email at iamchrisschulz@gmail.com. Good, bad or ugly, I love hearing from you!
This plan looks incredible and everything that the iMax building currently is not. Well-lit, welcoming and a place you actually want to go.
I think I posted in my comment to your first post about needing something like Christchurch's EntX - it does seem to take some cues from that (https://metropol.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Metropol-Web104.jpg) but it seems even several levels above. The floating bar seems just so insane it might work...