Mayor concedes defeat on plan to save the Dux de Lux building

Wednesday, 24 July 2024

Dreams of a reborn Dux de Lux are no more as the owners of the Arts Centre complex say they intend to press ahead with their own plans for the site.

Mayor Phil Mauger is conceding defeat on an election promise to restore the former Dux de Lux building, as the Arts Centre pushes ahead with its own plan, which will still include hospitality at the venue.

The only problem is, the Arts Centre has no money to progress the project.

Mauger made moves in May to deliver on a 2022 election promise to save the building by asking Christchurch City Council staff to look into options to restore and develop the former Dux de Lux building.

A report was due back to council before it signed off on its 10-year budget, the long term plan (LTP), at the end of June. This did not happen and Mauger said this week, there would be no report.

He said council interim chief executive Mary Richardson met with the Arts Centre to discuss the council buying the property and restoring it.

“They said ‘Nup. We can’t sell it to you. We’re not going to. Go away. We’ve got a cunninger plan’.

“I don’t know what the more cunning plan is.”

Mauger said he tried as hard as he could to progress his plan.

“It failed. You can only push a barrow so far and then you say ‘enough’.

“The way I look at it, we offered to help and they were not interested.”

Arts Centre director Philip Aldridge said the Act of Parliament which governs how the Arts Centre operates prevented the board from selling any property.

He said the Arts Centre Trust Board was now progressing with its own plan to restore the building, which he preferred to describe as the former student union, rather than the Dux de Lux.

Aldridge said $250,000 was needed to get the project to the point where it could lodge a resource consent application. The money would also be spent on designs and costings.

“We have a plan and that requires funding to get to resource consent.”

The Arts Centre had asked the council for the money, but did not receive a response, Aldridge said. It would apply for grants to meet the cost.

The plan included resurrecting some type of hospitality option in there. “It’s the most perfect spot in town. It’s north-facing.”

However, there was likely to be more than one tenant, because it was a large building, Aldridge said.

He said multiple people had already expressed an interest in operating from the building.

Previously the trust board has prioritised the restoration of its category one-listed heritage buildings rather than the category two-listed Dux.

It restored 20 of its 22 category one-listed buildings. The remaining two have been mothballed because the Arts Centre does not have the more than $50m required to repair them.

Aldridge said the board was now looking to restore the student union building which would be much less expensive.

Money to fund the restoration would be sought from council, the Government and from a series of leases on the building.

The Arts Centre has had a strained relationship with the council in recent times.

Earlier this year the Arts Centre said it needed between $1.83 million and $2.5m annually, otherwise, the trust would fold and the council would be forced to take the centre on.

It launched a highly successful public campaign, which attracted about 4000 submissions to the LTP, in support of its funding bid.

In May, Mauger criticised Arts Centre decisions and suggested new trustees be appointed “who can do the job”.

The council decided in June to give the Arts Centre $750,000 for the next two years and then $500,000 for the following eight years. It also decided to work with the Arts Centre to develop a sustainable funding model.

The Dux building was originally built in 1883 by Francis William Petre for John Lewis, a Christchurch merchant. Petre designed the now demolished Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament in Barbadoes St.

Canterbury University bought the building in 1926 and it became the home of the student union until the early 1970s when the university moved to Ilam. Later that decade it became the Dux de Lux operated by Richard Sinke.