Town Basin facilities upgrade
- Project typeInfrastructure improvements
- Project scheduleAugust 2022 - September 2023
A major re-vamp of the Town Basin’s bus and visitor facilities was completed in September 2023. The project will improve the area for visitors and the wider community.
The work is complete and the main Town Basin car park is now open for public.
What’s the plan?
The project included safer bus stops for tour buses and cruise ship buses, new public toilets near the playground, upgraded car parks, and more mobility-friendly parking.
The work has improved entry from Dent Street to the bus lane, bus stops and new car parks, including new mobility parking. A new crossing was also built on Dent Street to cater to increased foot traffic from the Town Basin into the central city.
There are new high amenity footpaths, landscaping and way-finding signs from Pūtahi Park through to Hundertwasser Art Centre, and on towards the already upgraded children’s playground.
A plan showing upgrade of bus facilities at Town Basin is shown below:
Town Basin bus facilities upgrade plan(PDF, 10MB)
Stages of this project
We are using a staged approach to minimise disruption.
Town Basin bus facilities - Staging plan(PDF, 10MB)
In Stage One, we installed paving around the new 'About Time' ball-clock installation. The kinetic artwork is a popular attraction and the new paving allows for easier access.
Stage Two included redesign for the area between the Ball Clock, Clapham’s Clock Museum and the children’s playground and install a new toilet block. New landscaping, paving and planting now connect the spaces and create better sight lines and safer connections between the waterfront and car parks.
Stage Three included installation of the one-way bus lane to take buses from Dent Street, behind Claphams Clocks, past the playground, and out onto Finlayson Street.
Dent Street footpath
A section of the footpath on Dent Street will be closed as the project enters a new phase. The section of footpath is between the Whangārei Art Museum and the playground car park.
Funding for the project
Government's Tourism Infrastructure Fund has provided $1.67 million towards the project. The funding was granted in 2019 and then COVID-19 hit and the project was slowed down.
We were expecting a boom in visitors to our District in 2020, once the Hundertwasser Art Centre and Pūtahi Park opened and cruise ships started arriving at Northport.
The Hundertwasser Art Centre and Pūtahi Park both opened recently, and both are proving very popular. Lots more people are coming into the area, while numbers visiting retail and eateries are also bouncing back under the COVID-19 traffic light system.
Pūtahi Park
Stand together artwork
The work at the Town Basin has provided the perfect opportunity for the late Clive Williams’ artwork ‘Stand Together’ to be restored by Kim Groeneveld and re-installed by Robinsons’ contractors at one of the District’s busiest hubs.
“Stand Together”, is sixteen timber panels, the same height, arranged in a V form. It is both simple and complex.
Thirty-two sides of the vertical panels are painted in red, white and black, to represent Māori iwi, while the other sides are painted in the “colours of the land”.
Moving around the work a carved double spiral or koru is revealed, symbolising new life and the unfurling of the power of growth and potential.
The work’s message is that separate elements have little meaning, unless we ‘stand together’. The artist gifted the work to the city in 1981 and it held a prime position outside Forum North for many years.
Location
Town Basin, Whangārei 0110 View Map
-35.72531616254447, 174.32611256829193
Town Basin ,
Whangārei 0110
Town Basin ,
Whangārei 0110
Town Basin facilities upgrade