Is someone trying to sabotage the St James?
Chlöe Swarbrick and owner Steve Bielby claim Auckland's mayor is deliberately delaying the venue's renovations.
Eighteen months ago, Chlöe Swarbrick was singing. “What a great daaay,” she’d cooed to herself on the upper deck of the St James Theatre. Venue owner Steve Bielby was there. So too was Labour MP Carmel Sepuloni and about a dozen journalists. Everyone had gathered to hear the good news: financing was secured, deals were done. Work could finally begin on restoring the controversial and mothballed inner-city Auckland venue. Bielby gave himself a 2028 deadline to re-open, on the 100th anniversary. “We did it,” Swarbrick said at the time. She pumped her fist to celebrate.
Same spot, same subject, completely different circumstances. Swarbrick’s feeling glummer now than she was back then. “I was so happy,” she says about that day back in July, 2023. Just two journalists have gathered for the latest announcement. The news? It’s not good. Renovation work on the St James has stalled. Paperwork and political maneuverings are holding things up. The $31.5 million pledged by government, council and Manatū Taonga’s Heritage Equip fund isn’t yet accessible. “The delays … have cost Auckland’s city centre and the project dearly,” says Swarbrick.
The problem? Tāmaki Makaurau’s mayor Wayne Brown who, Swarbrick says, seems to have “a weird vendetta against the building”. Things started getting awkward around the middle of the year when Brown requested more information about the theatre’s restoration plans. He wanted the council’s $15 million funding decision – matching the government’s $15 million donation – sent back to council to approve. Swarbrick says the issue kept getting taken off agendas. “It's been delayed [at] every single meeting by the mayor,” says Swarbrick. “It's pulled at the very last minute.”
Finally, Swarbrick decided she’d had enough. She wrote Brown a harsh letter demanding an end to the delays. “Manufactured paper-pushing has been holding up the start of construction work,” she wrote. “This is an unnecessary, invented bureaucratic exercise.” Standing in the St James today, her frustration is obvious. “It's very clear that he hasn't read any of the papers and he has very little understanding about the funding that we have committed to the project,” she says. Renovation work should be well underway. Instead, the project is yet again wrapped in red tape. “It's a new thing the mayor's ... made up,” says Swarbrick. “It’s self-imposed, arbitrary.”
Brown hasn’t replied to her letter. He didn’t respond to my repeated requests for comment either. (Finally, he did: see the update below.) But, a week ago, his office gave a statement to Stuff: “The mayor has asked officials for more information and is awaiting further advice. It would be inappropriate for him to comment at this time,” it said. Instead, councillors have fronted media and are trying to interpret Brown’s actions for him. “The mayor wants to see a great cultural facility … that is my understanding,” Chris Darby told Stuff. “I think Aucklanders would want us to continue with the project,” said Richard Hills.
He may not be talking to media now, but Brown has revealed his thoughts on the St James restoration. In a column penned in August and published in The Post, he called it an “ill thought-out, emotionally-driven heritage classification”. Under the headline, ‘Some perspective on heritage buildings needed,’ he attacked the theatre as the “worst example of what can go wrong” with heritage renovation projects. He even managed to blame the issues of troubled retailer Smith & Caughey’s on the St James.
Here’s more from Brown:
“No developer has managed to make financial sense of redeveloping what should by now have been a modern, multi-story, mixed building of apartments, offices, hotel and ground floor retail. Instead, what we have is … a general area of decline which has infected wonderful buildings with wonderful offerings like the much loved and possibly about to be lost Smith and Caughey’s … The result is an eyesore near Queen St where a rusting frame is holding up about 6m of uninteresting old façade and behind that is a decaying mess, including the heritage covered interior of the old Saint James theatre.”
That sounds like someone who really doesn’t like the St James Theatre.
Despite repeated invites, Brown hasn’t visited the St James site. He wasn’t there last year when Sepuloni confirmed the government’s $15 million contribution, and he hasn’t turned up since. Bielby says a visit is penciled in for January. But he wonders if Brown’s ever been there, or if he knows its history as a legendary music venue, a place where Coldplay, Kanye West, Miles Davis and Limp Bizkit have all played. “If he came up here and sat for 10 minutes, he'd be on the journey, he could ask those sensible questions,” says Bielby. “He'd be like, ‘Oh, that's why you've done this.’”
Despite the holdup, Bielby has ploughed on, doing as much as he can with the money he has. He estimates he’s spent $1.5 million this year replacing the roof, installing security, setting up offices and running new power and communication lines in. “I did all that work so we could start the actual work,” he says. “I can't sign that next contract – it's a $10m chunk of work – until I've got certainty that that funding is there.” Meanwhile, the $31.5 million committed to the project is devaluing by the day. “Back of the envelope, it’s worth half-a-million less,” says Swarbrick. “You can’t engineer your way out of inflation,” says Bielby.
The delays are frustrating. “This seems to be some very bizarre retrofitted red herring rationale to delay everything,” says Swarbrick. But Bielby’s been here before. In 2022, he said he was having one last go at getting his restoration plans funded. He warned it might be time to “let it go”. As the delays continued, people kept breaking in, vandalising his building and stealing things, including expensive copper wiring and two 94-year-old bronze statues. He went to great lengths to source expensive replacements from France. When last year’s funding was announced, he dared to dream of Neil Finn recreating his Seven Worlds Collide concert as the grand re-opening.
Bielby, who purchased the St James in 2014, had set aside much of this year to dig in. It’s on hold, but he has to plough on. He has no other option. Because of its heritage status, the St James Theatre can’t be knocked down. “I have to mothball this building if I can’t restore it,” he says. “It sits as it is, or we do something with it.” Will he call in lawyers to force the issue? “I don’t think we’ll need to … we're not massively litigious people.”
And so, it’s a waiting game. The St James restoration is due to be discussed at yet another council meeting in February. A decision should be made then. But the mayor could easily delay it. By now, Bielby’s used to the setbacks. “I’ve been in this shit-show for 10 years,” he says, leading me out the door. “I’m going to have a kiwi summer. Some beach time, some sun … and [I’ll be] crossing my fingers.”
UPDATE: I have received a statement from the mayor. It’s exactly the same as the one given to Stuff: “The Mayor has asked officials for more information and is awaiting further advice. It would be inappropriate for him to comment at this time.”
Eighteen months ago, 12 journalists turned up to cover the latest development in the St James saga. This time, there were just two. If you’d like to support the work I’m doing here, please consider becoming a paid supporter of Boiler Room. The more that do, the more journalism I can do. If you’re already doing this, then thank you! If you know someone who might enjoy a Boiler Room subscription for Christmas, I’ve got a 20% off deal running until December 25. You can access that here.
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The St James situation grinds my gears. It should have been up and open by now. Auckland desperately needs this venue cos at the moment we are missing that mid-size/bigger than the Powerstation smaller than Spark Arena venue. Not to mention that part of Queen Street needs love.
I very much do want my ratepayer money spent on this project, I don’t understand how it’s still a question. Fix it so we can use and enjoy this really incredible venue.