It maybe a year but it still feels like yesterday.

I can't and don't read the harrowing stories of survival in The Press that have been published recently. I haven't watched any earthquake TV nor will I watch When a City Falls, even though it is supposed to be very good.

No doubt it will be determined that I am in denial, that I am not strong enough to confront what has gone before, and that is probably right. I think that I am still grieving for my city. I was on Cashel street last week, near Madras and I looked to the south through the Bedford, Apex car rental and Edward Gibbon and lo and behold I could see the CPIT.

Now that is strange, you have to admit. All over the city, odd views are appearing, unrecognisable views. Creating those views are the odious munchers and diggers. They and the endless Wilsons car parks that have sprung up everywhere rank right up there with car salesmen and real estate agents as being the least liked professions/businesses.

When one thinks of demolition you have to think of the rebuild and there have been two worrying signs this week. The first is CCC head of planning saying that the Sydenham Regeneration plan was shite, or words to that effect. Her alleged actual words are as follows:

"I'm not sure that what we did in Sydenham is likely to deliver a great outcome for the community."

Well why carry on? Why not take a step back and reappraise the situation. No, that won’t happen, we have our processes and we shall stick to them!!

The second is the front page of the press where it reported that there was a flight of capital from the city. Neither of these two things are a surprise.

I believe that in Sydenham we are caught in the midst of a council with absolutely no money, and a whole bunch of individual land and building owners with a huge variety of different financial and insurance circumstances.

Perhaps we need a charasmatic visionary benevolent dictator to buy up the land and create something really fresh and vibrant. Here are my ideas:

• Bury the ring road (Brougham Street at Colombo) in a tunnel, thereby reconnecting the shops opposite and around Sydenham Park with the rest,
• Widen Colombo Street so there is room for an electric bus to go up the middle from Cashmere to South City. There is plenty of empty land to do this!
• Get rid of the Colombo Street overbridge, do we need it for 3 trains a day?!
• Make the pavements wide wide wide!
• Encourage residential to be built on the side streets, on either side of Colombo Street
• Speed up the consent process,
• Be flexible and innovative in terms of parking requirements and the suchlike.

I have recently spent a few days in Melbourne. I was so excited to be there and gutted to come home. I had lunch with Dave Henderson a few months ago and he said that sometimes you go somewhere and you feel that the urban design really works. It works because of a number of small things that all work so well together. That's Melbourne!

I walked everywhere even though the trams were brilliant, I sat in cafes and watched the world go by, I was served coffee very quickly, and I ate and drank far too much.

Melbourne was lucky their forefathers utilised The Hoddle Grid for their road layout; check it out on Wikipedia. The only reason the roads are so wide is so that bullocks and carts could be accommodated. If only we had a few bullocks in Christchurch in 1840.

But we could change things now; Colombo Street from St Asaph street north is a mess. Make it wider, make it a feature.

What is also apparent from Melbourne is the vibrancy that people bring to the cityscape.

The people are there for work and many live locally too. The key point is that it takes a lot of them concentrated in small areas to create that busy and exciting feel about a city. That density can only come from high rise buildings. High rise buildings serve the owners well and can be safe. The two most recently built multi story buildings in Christchurch survived intact with no loss of life.

We need a compact but high rise CBD set on wide streets with a load of residential outside and around of the core CBD. You will all be wringing your hands in horror at the thought of modern high rise, but they are safe! We have to overcome our fears and think of 30 years’ time when Christchurch is home to half a million people and they will all be saying why did that old lot make the CBD so spread out. Why didn't they think of electric buses (which island is all the hydroelectric in?), why aren't there cafes on every street corner (because low rise will not house sufficient people to make them all economically viable)

I could go on. Again I believe we need a visionary, and whilst we are at it please please can we have a train to and from Rolleston. It is such a no brainer.

Which district is the fastest growing in NZ, exacerbated by the earthquakes? Umm Selwyn.

People who live in Rolleston work where? Umm Christchurch.

In the meantime we have a CEO playing golf, earning megabucks for an average job, and the councillors scrapping like kids in a schoolyard.

How can the CEO say I’ll turn down my pay rise if the councillors behave? He is an employee of the council, an employee! He does what he is asked to do as per his job description and his key objectives.

Perhaps local democracy is broken and we should go back to feudal times. It should work like this: We elect the councillors; they implement policy, which staff then implement. Staff do not create policy. Couldn’t be much simpler one would think.

On a lighter note, never play Eye Spy in the car with your adult children; talk about esoteric, and yet they miss the blindingly obvious!

Ahh children, don’t you just love them

A Tale of Two Cities

What a weekend! The story started on February 22nd like many in Christchurch, with the earthquake. A long time mate of mine and me had bought tickets to the rwc2011 Christchurch pool and cup matches. Of course they were cancelled and although my friend is a little indecisive I convinced him into buying a semi-final ticket which we won the right to buy on ballot, with the money from the original ticket refund. I even booked flights ahead and then we promptly forgot all about it. We have had other things on our minds!

Last week we panicked a little and though we eventually found some accommodation it did cost a small fortune. We decided to stay in the CBD so we could be part of the action. Last week I was thinking that going up Friday and back on Monday might be too long and I even wondered if I could be bothered going at all. I am so pleased we went but it did bring in to stark contrast just how completely screwed our city is.

Auckland is full and buzzing with life. There are people everywhere, bars are open with queues outside and there are many many tall buildings. It took some getting used to. I lay in bed on the 9th floor of the hotel on Saturday morning and half asleep wondered what my escape route may be if there was an earthquake. I decided that if there was an earthquake I would be stuffed and then Kim Hill on National Radio gently put me back to sleep again. Apart from 2 days in Hanmer in April, like many of us, I haven't left Canterbury since September 4 and probably much longer. My mate Dave and me were both completely knackered on Saturday (a year of unrelenting pressure) and just chilled though it may have had something to do with the 3 pints (do they do pints in Auckland, they were $9 each so they must have been!?) of Epic Armageddon we had the night before. We did a wander down Ponsonby road, very wide road, wide footpaths, great shops and bars and cafes, and some interest wherever we looked. Some ideas for Sydenham perhaps!

Speaking of Sydenham, being in Auckland just made me very sad for the loss of our city. It’s only when you go away to somewhere normal that you realise what we have lost. Recent aerial pictures of the CBD show just how many buildings have been demolished and it isn’t over yet. There are still hundreds of buildings to come down. I have realised that the heart of a city is so important. It contains life of all sorts, colour, movement, people, noise and smells. It’s where people work and play, shop and just pass through. I miss the fact that I can’t walk through the square to the library. I can’t wander down to the strip and meet friends. I can’t chat to the lovely ladies at the bank on a Monday, always hoping that I don’t get the creepy chap, as I queue up at the inevitable line.

Maybe Re-Start in Cashel Mall will help but I believe that we are all missing our recent past lives. Nowadays work is either near to your own home or on the other side of town, and we go and do our own thing after work. We have lost that central meeting place, that congregation of people that spells life. I have no idea how the city planners can fix this but oh how I ache for this after a weekend in Auckland.

And so to the rugby; I have been to many famous rugby grounds in the world but the atmosphere at Eden Park was just indescribable. From the moment we arrived the tension amongst the AB fans was palpable. I talked to an Aussie before the match, and he was very magnanimous saying that if they lost he would be happy as we deserved our second world cup win as they had two already! Bastard! The noise when the team walked out was a primeval roar and the anthem was never sung with more intensity and emotion. I couldn’t sing, as I had a lump in my throat the size of a baseball and had tears streaming down my face. I can still feel the emotion now. What is that saying from someone famous; how the hopes of a nation rest in the hands of so few. As for the Haka, the silence was eerie, every word heard as the whole stadium went quiet and we were all on the pitch with the AB’s, all 60,000 of us.

Right from the kick-off the crowd immediately had a hopeful feeling as Cooper kicked off and it went into touch. Was that a portent of things to come? As it turned out it was, and the match was only spoilt for me by some boorish Poms behind us that were homophobic and one of whom insisted on telling the AB’s on what to do for every one of the 80 minutes. That included such instructions as tackle, pass, contest etc. etc. ad nauseum. Oh, and this was all done with a voice that sounded like it had been smoking 40 a day for twenty years.

As for the homophobia, everyone and everything was gay. The jackets the Aussies wore when they came out on the field were gay; James O’Connor’s mother was gay, Quade Cooper caught the ball like a gay (did he ever cleanly take a high ball in the match), and Samo had a gay haircut! One does wonder about their public school upbringing, the only satisfaction that I had was that their boys had gone home!

The last few minutes of the match went in in a blur. At 78 minutes gone, when sixty thousand fans realised that the match was ours, there was such a roar around the ground. Such a release of tension, the sound was an expression of the dreams of a nation that have been on hold for so many years. Afterwards the warm feeling of victory was pervasive and it was a great end to a brilliant weekend away.

Being away always makes me reassess things so today I have made an appointment with a business coach to help me be better organised. Organising and recreating the heart of our city will take a bit longer.

Sometimes your children surprise you. I haven’t heard from eldest son in ages, as he hides in Wellington with his girlfriend, try to save money to return to university by working innumerable hours at an airport café, when he obviously happened upon my blog and commented thus:

Blog more dad, you are the kind of person who's thoughts SHOULD be on the internet =)

Truly eye opening and inspiring stuff.

It was one of those warm fuzzy moments that parents have from time to time. Not that often when they are teenagers it has to be said, but occasionally, just occasionally they surprise you.

I haven’t blogged for a while, normally I need a certain amount of wine to be in the mood and it hasn’t been for the lack of wine that I haven’t sat down at the keyboard, that’s for sure. I just haven’t been in the mood, being totally consumed with the effort of obtaining council consent for the café renovation. It is such a process that if you weren’t totally committed to doing it, you could easily be forgiven for just throwing it in and giving up.

Last week I nearly did give up. What I can’t stand is being second guessed. In the end our consent came down to an engineer in the consent department versus my engineer. My engineer spent 25 minutes on the phone to the council and the council guy wouldn’t see sense, so we just did what he wanted. What cost was involved in that conversation? What benefit was gained, to the extent that the public will be safer, or that the building will be safer? Nothing was gained except the council guy won the pissing contest and he can go home at night feeling very happy that he is still going to earn his $80k.

Meanwhile out here in the real world, we have used the best sub-contractors and tradesmen who are very detailed, we have producer statements coming out our ears (actually what the hell are they?) and we are just getting on with it. It’s not like I am renovating a two story brick building in Bexley is it?

What has happened to our world when no one exercises any judgement or reasonableness anymore? All it would have taken is for someone from the council to have left their cosy office in Upper Riccarton and taken a look. But of course that can’t happen because unless you have consent then no one can do a site visit. Those are the rules.

In these times particularly there has to be some judgement applied. What type of people are we entrusting the future of our city too? These are faceless bureaucrats, enjoying a cosy life without taking any risk. Risk is what makes a person human. To have tried something, whether you win or lose, is life enhancing, and it is the risk takers that employ people, that spend the money in the community and enhance the community around us. I could have just sat on my arse for a year, collected a 7 figure sum from the insurer and gone to Australia.

The aftershocks in mid-June did not help the situation and it seems to have heightened the nervousness within the council staff. I seriously wonder how any new buildings can be built while the aftershocks continue, and even if they subside what will the new building codes look like? I am particularly annoyed about that new building on Barbadoes Street that tilted severely after the 13^th June aftershock.

Everyone was so pleased that the building withstood the quake, no lives were lost and “it did its job”. This is wrong. What is being forgotten is the business inside the building. It is the business that supports multiple incomes, the business that is someone’s dream, the business that has now been shut THREE times by quakes. Architects and engineers take note!

A more quake resilient building might cost more, but it will have lower insurance premiums, and will, in its lifetime, result in less insurance pay-outs over its lifetime, should the unthinkable happen. By the way how many times has the unthinkable happened already!

I still feel very sad about our city, as there are reminders everywhere and some people I know seem to be on the verge of breakdown. I went to the doctor this week and obtained some sleeping pills as I was just becoming very crabby and unreasonable. They work well but they are highly addictive.

So as for the café renovation it is coming on well. See the photos on our Facebook page; we have the Gib up, it needs stopping, then painting, then it’s the floor and then it’s the run home. Feel free to pop in and see progress. We put our brand new front in this week and it is very striking. We are going to put a big orange bear on the top of the verandah (another consent!) so everyone will know exactly where we are.

Next time I write we will be very close to opening so until then, be safe

Rob

For once I have reached the end of the day and I am not too tired to scribble a few words. For the last two weeks my mind has been full of infinitely detailed minutiae related to our café renovation. For requiring that level of detail I have to thank our builder. He is the one who built the flat that we are living in, and it hasn’t moved or cracked despite the alarming levels of ground force acceleration that we have suffered.

My days are full of chasing things up, such as: finding out the exact placement of an electrical feed into an appliance, where do the dwangs (a new word for me, and quite a nice one) need to be for the basins, is the tap hole on the right or left side, where do the security cameras go, are the light switches in the toilet automatic and finally (it won’t be the last question) how long will the fans operate for in the bathroom?

At 8 am last Monday I started marking out all the electrical fittings around the whole building with the builder. It was cold, I had had only one coffee, we seemed to be moving the same lengths of wood out of the way all the time, but finally at 11am we finished. That builder sure does love his detail! He is prepared for us to make the odd minor mistake along the way but he is desperate to avoid any big ones. Although I grumble about it a bit, in my heart I know he is right, and we should end up with a great result.

I inherited all sorts of crappy wiring and circuitry and design faults in our old place and we coped as best we could, so this is a great chance to get it right. I am a bit of a bar-fly at the moment as I go to various places and see how they have things laid out. I was in one bar a few weeks ago and I sneakily took a photo of the back bar on my phone, almost embarrassing and a bit stalker-ish.

Speaking of our old place we managed to get in to the building last week for an hour. The email actually said we would only have ten minutes, but the reality was pleasantly different. I’m not sure pleasant is exactly the right word though. Four of us went in and I must admit to being very nervous about it before hand. We drove down Madras, along Lichfield to the Excelsior corner and parked up. We had innumerable briefings, donned hard hats and hi-vis vests and wandered inside accompanied by a USAR man.

The USAR guy was great we worked on all the important things first, like the till system and back office computer, and two of us concentrated on gathering up all the artwork. We were well prepared, with gloves and face masks but actually it was ok. The masks became annoying quickly so we just got on with it. The smell was unpleasant but not unbearable

Anything that had wires attached that couldn’t be easily removed got the wire cutter treatment, all in the name of efficiency of course. We stacked everything up by the door and then made a few runs to the van, which ended up being full to the brim. They wanted us to limit the amount of time we were under the verandah. Surprisingly we were allowed up onto the top two floors, and what a sight it was. The top floor especially was just a complete disaster zone. Items strewn everywhere, a whole table had gone missing, presumably now in the rubble of Ruben Blades.

The view from my desk was great, (do I really mean that?) I could see virtually all the way to Fitzgerald Avenue down Lichfield Street. I could see where the old ANZ Chambers building was, the Excelsior which has cracks everywhere, and the old Civic which was obviously built like a brick shit house and looks to be fine. We grabbed a few photos and personal possessions and scarpered downstairs. What was surprising was that some intrepid soul had tagged the inside of the windows on the top floor, and on the walls, and had stolen 20 cases of wine. We have been so reassured by the Police and CERA and the council that everything in the red zone was completely secure and yet every day there are more stories about thefts. Go figure.

Outside we were waiting for another group of people to finish and I just looked up and saw our broken building, holes gaping in its side, leaning weirdly, and I have to admit I burst in to tears. That building held so many memories; it had my hopes and dreams inextricably tied up in every brick, in every stick of furniture, in every cup, plate and glass.

So we are moving on, and up. I am still waiting for my material damage claim to be paid out by the insurers, but all of a sudden they seem to be operating at a snail’s pace, and the loss adjustor is now using equivocal words like “your settlement is under consideration” whereas before all correspondence was phrased with more certainty. I have committed a considerable sum in the new property, and by doing so I am mitigating the losses of the insurer, can’t they just pay out?

My energy has run out tonight, I have a series of meetings tomorrow signing off on furniture, electrical fittings etc. etc. and a Sydenham regeneration meeting in the evening. In the back of my mind there still lurks the knowledge that we have a 23% chance of another big earthquake. It may well happen, but I can assure you that this city and its people do not need it. We are coping with the new normality; we have enough energy to do the minimum that we need to, but no more.  Enough already.

We hope to reopen the cafe at the end of June/early July, dependent on receiving consent from the council this week.

Be safe

Rob

 Rob Gould, owner of The Honeypot Cafe, former accountant, born and bred in Christchurch, 20 years in the UK.A blog describing the issues around a CBD business in these "new normal" times.

It’s been a couple of weeks since I last blogged about progress on our café renovation but that has been a little bit deliberate as I have wanted to keep a low profile whilst our building works are continuing. We are doing all the right things building wise, getting professionals to do all the design work, engineers to specify the detail, and oversizing all the pipework so we don’t run into problems down the track.

A minor or major issue, depending on how you look at it, is that we don’t actually have consent yet. So we are living on a bit of a knife edge until we can get that ticked off. My designer has promised me that all the relevant forms will be in the council today, and we have had many discussions with various council people getting things verbally signed off as we go through the process. So, it should all be ok, but there is enough of a niggling doubt there to give me the odd sleepless night.

Of course the aftershocks give many people sleepless nights in any case. I woke up when the 5.3 hit yesterday morning at 3 a.m. and soon went back to sleep again. When it happened I laid there waiting to see how long it went on, could I hear anything falling out of the kitchen cupboards, how intense was the shaking or ground force acceleration to be precise. Every big aftershock takes me back to 22^nd February, it’s just unavoidable, and it will take many months for those very emotional and intense feelings to gradually dissipate.

Last Sunday I went for a long walk from Waltham right up to and around the CBD. A walk such as that really gives you a first-hand idea of the scope and scale of the damage. The red zone is still massive in size. It’s certainly a long walk because there are no shortcuts through anywhere. I gazed down Lichfield Street, from Madras Street to the old café and it was quiet and peaceful almost but also desolate and empty. On the news in the weekend was an item about the amount of rubble and debris that will be collected and dumped at Burwood. From memory 84,000 tonnes have been dumped so far but I think 8 million tonnes will eventually end up there. So, roughly 10% has been taken there so far.

The evidence for the scale of works till to be done is plain to see when you walk around the CBD red zone. Not only do the major buildings that everyone is talking about need to be demolished but I was astonished that so many residential houses on Peterborough Street were so badly damaged. The top half of one wooden villa I saw was leaning one way and the bottom half, the other way.

There is positive news around though. I see that Gordons the fruit & veg man is back up and running in Victoria Street, the banana man has a portacabin on Colombo Street in Sydenham, and many other small businesses are re-establishing themselves. With the government wage subsidy ending business owners have had to be very inventive and positive about helping themselves, otherwise their livelihoods have gone.

I attended a Sydenham regeneration meeting last night and they have developed a very tight deadline to come up with a new plan by the end of September. I was a little surprised at the attendees, there were 3 MP’s, a couple of councillors and a number of community board members, but not enough local business and building owners. It is early days yet I suppose but I hope the whole community will be involved. Sydenham could be a vibrant destination suburb with boutique shops and hospitality venues. Let’s get rid of the main road feel about it; trees, parks, playgrounds, a duck pond, buses around the back roads not down Colombo Street, park benches, mixed retail and residential low rise buildings. The stakeholders need to encourage the land & building owners to get on with the rejuvenation of the suburb. The longer the empty plots of land stay undeveloped the harder it will be to progress.

What is the future though for the CBD? I had a few drinks last night with a business owner who had three bars in Christchurch. She was of the opinion that the younger drinkers that used to frequent SOL Square are risk takers so when the CBD does re-open then they will come back in their droves. I wish I shared her optimism but I’m not convinced. Even if SOL Square is open there are still a large number of tall stone or brick buildings around that I wouldn’t feel comfortable wandering beneath. However I’m not a 20 something year old, so not really the target market, so I guess my view doesn’t count.

Speaking of views counting I hope everyone goes to the CBS arena over the weekend and shares ideas about the regeneration of our city.

That’s it for now, next time there will be real progress at the café, we might even have a definite opening date, and life will be that bit closer to returning to normal.

Stay Safe

Rob

 Rob Gould, owner of The Honeypot Cafe, former accountant, born and bred in Christchurch, 20 years in the UK.A blog describing the issues around a CBD business in these "new normal" times.

 It’s been a rollercoaster of a few days. Today it’s a big high, and last week, everything I looked at in terms of the renovation of the new café seemed to multiply in cost by tens of thousands. Head in hands time it was.

Last week the issues were around fire exits, meaning we need two front doors and drainage, where at one point we thought we were going to have to dig new drains right out into the middle of Colombo Street. That was going to cost me $10,000 just from the front door into the middle of the road. Let alone the cost of getting the drains to the front door! Today I am on a high because of a very nice man from the CCC who said I didn’t need to spend all that money and I could just carry on as we are. Yeeha, what a result!

It has though, been a rewarding few days. Despite the roadblocks, it’s a bit like The Amazing Race, I have been very determined to push ahead and make things happen. I’ve been on the phone for hours calling up suppliers of security systems, fridges, till systems, refrigeration, flooring; and the list goes on. When I speak to suppliers the reception that I have had when I say we are reopening The Honeypot Café has been brilliant. Everyone knows of the café, and the fact that we are reopening, and so soon, seems to be exciting everyone.

This afternoon at the new council offices in Riccarton was a good example of how people react. I remembered the ladies on the front desk and was chatting to them and they were encouraged  to hear of our reopening, the very nice (have I said how nice he is already) Inspector of drainage man made my day and saved me $15,000, I saw Vincie who did some brilliant work post September and was very supportive of the High Street Pop Up Market Day that we ran. Then I ran into one of our old regulars, Phillipa, who thought where we were moving to was perfect, and that as she used to walk down to South City Mall then another 200 yards wouldn’t be a big issue. Big grin!

The support is so nice. It’s a good news story after all. We were down, almost out, but we are so definitely not beaten. I love that Facebook page Rise Up Christchurch. It seems to encapsulate the feeling of goodwill that is around the town, and the determination to get back to normal. I know there are so many people that are just getting by in the eastern suburbs, and I do feel sorry, or should I say, empathy for them but the best thing I can do is get my business back up and operating so that I can create jobs, so my staff can spend money and, in a small way, keep the local economy going. Oh and when we reopen I will do a special eastern burbs deal.

So as to the renovation there is still a lot of work to do, but we are on track for opening on 1^st June. We are having the final session with our designer tomorrow morning and then the builder can have a free go at it. My landlord came back from overseas during the weekend and he had a look at what we have done in 9 days and he was very impressed. He could not believe how big his own building is, without all the “stuff” in it.

Three aftershocks this morning made me think about how everything we do now is defined by earthquakes. Where were you on September 4^th, Boxing Day, and February 22^nd? It’s still a very common conversation piece, everyone has a story, everyone has an urban legend about holes opening up in the ground and then closing over, and everyone has a story about if I had been in town an hour later what would have happened to me. It’s good for those stories to be shared, maybe even elaborated on as time goes by, as its part of the healing process. We need to heal and remember, and grieve.

I have seen some tweets about the alleged “rubberneckers” along St. Asaph Street, how irritating it is to those drivers wanting to drive on through. I have no problem with people looking at the destruction of our city. It’s important that the public does this. From people that have been in the red zone the destruction is much worse than we can imagine so a tour along St. Asaph Street looking at the huge scale of the destruction can only be, in the long run therapeutic.

My son, master 17, was working on recipes for the café today, with the head chef, and afterwards I took him along St. Asaph Street. It’s not often he is quiet, maybe he even had some dust in his eyes, but he sure did have a much better feel for what has happened to our city. The block of Colombo Street from St. Asaph is the most horrific, and the most moving of what we can see because of the lost lives, the lost livelihoods, and the lost liveliness.

So obviously I have had the right amount of alcohol tonight, the words seem to have flowed well, but please forgive my grammar, spelling, and English and Kiwi idioms used.  Feedback would be good to receive, positive or negative. Tonight I have avoided all the big topics, the future of the CBD, CERA etc. etc. but they will no doubt feature in future blogs.

Stay safe,

Rob

Phew! What a week it has been. Wednesday last week I decided that I needed some “me time” and so disappeared off to Hanmer Springs for a few days to recharge the batteries and to do something different. I arrived back in Christchurch last Friday with an appointment to view a potential new site for the café on Saturday morning. On walking in to the place on Saturday I knew it was exactly right for us. It had some really nice booths down one side and an absolutely huge kitchen. It had the bones of what we were looking for. The owner had one other group of people that were interested in it so I had to wait until 4pm to see whether I was the lucky one. It is a bit like that at the moment in terms of retail property in Christchurch, you have to be lucky, know someone, or just have exactly the right timing.

Around 3pm I took my partner and a close friend to the property to peer through the window and then the landlord arrived so we could go inside. The other “interested party” arrived and when they couldn’t stump up with the cash, they went and the landlord wandered out and gave me the keys!

Talk about a shock! I shook hands on a deal, no lawyers, no money had changed hands but I had the keys. I went round to the landlord’s place and wrote out the contract, had two glasses of red wine at 3pm in the afternoon (thanks Colleen) and although I had the contract he said that I could take it away and sleep on it overnight. Sleeping was helped by a bottle of Champagne by way of a celebration and then Sunday was just about writing the cheque for all the fixtures and fittings.

What a nice way to do business, but I must admit that I was a bit nervous about ringing up the bank manager, the loss adjustor, and the lawyer on Monday morning. As it happens the loss adjustor was very happy, and so he should be, as I was going to be saving the insurer bag loads of money. The lawyer was slightly shell shocked, particularly when I sent the one page lease through, and the bank manager was happy because his office is just across the road!

The lawyer was quite funny because on Tuesday he called me up and asked me if the lease was just a memorandum of understanding prior to a proper 17 page Auckland District Law Society lease agreement being drawn up. I said no, the one page lease was it; and there was silence on the end of the phone. I could sense his reluctance but a handshake with the landlord was good enough for me.

So this week has been awesome. I know longer wonder how I fill the day in, I am now awake at anywhere between 2am and 4am, for tea and cigarettes because my mind is just full of stuff that needs doing. Tonight I might just follow Sue Wells and try one of those little blue pills that she has occasionally, to help with the sleep. Twitter has been very helpful. I have found a marketing person, and a great designer, but I am still looking for someone to help with some team building facilitation.

I have a great builder, who happens to be our landlord, we have started stripping out the interior, and the designer today was marking on the floor with crayon, where everything was going to go. It took me back to kindergarten days, the crayons. Just around the corner I have a friend who sells second hand catering equipment, so he has been in and out taking stuff to sell, and advising me what else I need to get. I have done a budget, didn’t like the number at the bottom, so I closed the laptop down. It is impossible to say how much it will cost, I have put the equipment costs in but how much should I put in for the plumber or sparky or the builder. I guess it will all work out in the end.

SIX WEEKS is all I have, and then I start paying rent, so I am being ferocious with everyone in terms of timeframes. The designer is off to the council in the morning, now they are in Riccarton Library, and I emailed him tonight to say that we are going to open in six weeks and the paperwork will have to follow. So long as what we build is compliant then it should all work out fine. Gulp!

If ever there is a time when things should be expedited and processes streamlined, it is now. The regeneration of businesses like mine is vital to the continued rebuilding of the city. As to where our new place is, for now that is a secret, but all will be revealed in good time. My staff like the new place, they have been working hard this week, on demolition duties and list writing and brainstorming all the things we need to buy. All I can say is that it’s a long list! Big up to them.

We are on the up again. We won’t be beaten. Whilst I was writing this there was a long aftershock, but I shrugged my shoulders and I got on with it. Let's rebuild our communities so we can all prosper again.

Stay safe

Rob

Rob Gould, owner of The Honeypot Cafe, former accountant, born and bred in Christchurch, 20 years in the UK.

A blog describing the issues around a CBD business in these "new normal" times.

Did you know that ducks eat acorns?

So another week has gone by, more CBD retailer meetings and some progress on finding a new location for our café. It is still a rather surreal environment that we wake up to each day, defined as the “new normal”. I can’t go the café for a coffee and an omelette. I did go through a stage last week where I went online and searched for a good home espresso machine but it was all too confusing so I’m left with strong instant or filter coffee if I can be bothered to clean the filter out and put water in it. Doesn’t sound like much to do but believe me it’s more than just rolling up at the café and sitting on the bar stool. I used to have a little competition with my staff; how long it took for them to make a coffee from the time I entered the café.

I heard this week that the place I was under-bidder on is definitely going to be taken up by the first bidder so that ruins that. When I heard that I was gutted. I went into a deep funk for 24 hours and was wondering if I had the mental fortitude to keep going. Inevitably I come back to the fact that I have invested a lot of money in the business and the brand, and I just can’t afford to throw it away. The insurers were talking about making me a lump sum offer to settle all claims and the loss adjustor said that some people were taking the money and disappearing to Australia. I must admit it is tempting, but all in all my staff are here, so are my customers, and I was born and bred here and it’s where I want to stay. Oh and two of three of my children are in town too.

I think that when I heard that our building was on the partial demolition list that was announced last Friday I slipped into mourning mode. I mean to say I have lost the place where we used to live, the bar where we used to have really good functions and the café. That is a lot to lose. Thankfully we are in a very sturdy apartment now but it’s not ours, we are really just camping there. And we have lost a lot of our personal possessions which were in the apartment. Who knows if we will ever get them back? And what exactly does partial demolition mean? So mentally I have written everything off that is still there. I can live without the possessions but it still hurts that I can’t flick through my old university photos, or use the dinner service that my mum and dad got for their wedding. It’s the same for the café. We did have a wedding reception booking for the end of February for a lovely couple that met at the café, that’s where he proposed so they wanted to have their reception there to. There were lots of stories like that. I guess, one has to let go and move on.

There are three possible opportunities I have in hand to relocate the café to; One on Moorhouse Avenue, one on Lincoln Road, and one in Sydenham. What I’m struggling with is how to decide what the best place to be for the future is. If I think about our customers, we had our regular ones in the weekend for brunch, random North American tourists in the evenings, the American Antarctic workers, coffee and dessert lovers post movies, council workers and the Westpac ladies or other such office workers. That isn’t an exhaustive list but it was an eclectic bunch. So where have all those people gone now?

The tourists have gone, or at least if they do come they will be staying in low rise outer Christchurch motels/hotels. The Antarctic lot will still appear twice a season, no movie lovers as there are no central city movie theatres open, council workers don’t have time to think let alone sneak off for an open sandwich. The other office workers have all relocated to the inner suburbs. A lot of them are there for up to six years, and will develop new habits for eating and drinking. They are talking about it being six months at least before the likes of SOL square is open again, and even when it does reopen will people want to come into town to party?

What I am most worried about is what happens after that 5-6 year period is up? Will those big professional firms move back into town, or will they stay where they are. Even if they did want to move back into town, will there be any office space suitable for them? I can’t imagine that the likes of the Forsyth Barr building will be rebuilt as is, nor the Clarendon Towers. So there will be less office space, less workers needing to eat and drink. The Civil Defence people have been doing a fantastic job. I attended a CBD retailers meeting last week with John Hamilton and they tried to explain what a huge task it was that they had in front of them. It is massive, and my walk along St Asaph Street on Friday confirmed that the face of the city has changed for ever. So many buildings destroyed, whole blocks of shops gone. The one area that they haven’t been so good as is communication, I’m hoping that they communicate better in the coming weeks.

So if I follow my logic then I need to be in the inner suburbs, but there is a huge risk attached to that decision. No one knows how the city will be redeveloped, so it is a big gamble. I gambled enough even buying the business with a decent long term lease, in the location that it was; do I have the appetite for more risk?

Speaking of appetite, I am writing this from Hanmer as I decided to get out of town for a few days to clear the head, and to escape those nasty little aftershocks. This morning I woke up and decided to go for a walk, and ended up walking up Conical Hill on an empty stomach. All I can say is that it was very nice to get to the top, my heart rate was very elevated and I needed a good few minutes at the top to rest. The heartstoppers breakfast afterwards was well earned. It’s a fantastic day up here, blue skies and quite warm and so nice to be away.

I have been walking in Christchurch too; one hour and ten minutes down to the river from Waltham, follow the river round to the library and then back up Colombo Street. It was by the river that I saw some ducks gathered around the bottom of an oak tree and they were eating the acorns! I had no idea that they ate them, just another random fact in these “new normal” times. It’s time to try the hot pools and soothe these aching muscles, and then I might have a nana nap.

Be safe,

Rob

Rob Gould, born and bred in Christchurch, 20 years in the UK, former accountant, owner of The Honeypot Cafe

A blog for CBD businesses to contribute to, to share the highs and lows of our current situation, "the new normal", and beyond.

We are still in limbo land. Another week passes by and no progress has been made in finding new premises. I heard today from my lawyer that the people with the accepted offer on our preferred venue have until 20^th April to find the finance. That made me think that I should get out of “dodge city” for a couple of weeks as I am not that patient and I need something else to do, rather than just hanging around waiting. I have been helping a friend out, painting in a new extension that she has had built. I had no idea how difficult it is to paint weatherboards! I was lying on the concrete path undercoating the lower boards and my friend’s dad came round and told me off for lying down on the job! Only way to get the job done, I say.

One thing though is that I am really missing my café. I miss the coffee, my staff, and my customers. I did find some good coffee today though as TP from coffeesmiths had set up a pop up place at 148 Wordsworth Street in Sydenham, so I raced round there this morning and had two long blacks before I started painting. He is there tomorrow as well, well worth a visit, free coffee for a red cross donation. He is like me with his business; not sure where to from here. His two outlets were in Cashel Street and Durham Street. Ironically good locations as they were near hotels, but now both outlets in the drop zones of the very same hotels. Go figure!

I had a look at a potential new place on Saturday, it was part of some rugby clubrooms, and might have been suitable. Ok kitchen, right size space, though it wasn’t really us in an atmosphere sense, being a 1970’s block building, but worse were the pissed 18 yo’s outside having a court drinking session with their tops off. Not sure what my customers would make of that, whilst they were sipping on their cappuccino. Mind you some may have liked it!

Working out where to locate your business is a tough call. Where is the new CBD? How long will the professional firms and others, slum it in lower Riccarton, Addington etc. etc. How long are their leases for, and the big question is will they stay there even when the CBD re-opens? In these uncertain times how can I make plans for my business without answers to those questions.

Thinking about the CBD I was brainstorming with some friends this week over three bottles of Sav and we wondered about enticing some multinational retailers into the city centre. Maybe IKEA would like to build on the Turners & Growers site. How about surrounding Ballantynes with GAP, Banana Republic, Zara, and Topshop et al. Yes, they would be competition for existing retailers but they would draw a lot of people in to town and there would be a spill over affect for all retailers.

The council have been given the unenviable task to create a new CBD. Why them? Have they some hidden visionaries in their midst that we are unaware of? If they follow their normal non inclusive approach to everything else I don’t hold out much hope for a 21^st century CBD that we can all be proud of. What is vital is that the community is involved, that their needs are understood and catered for. I shall watch that space with interest.

Speaking of community I have been wondering about the community boards in our city. I heard that for weeks post the 22^nd the best source of information for the community boards was the news media! That doesn’t appear to be democracy in action. So I was wondering what communication structures they had in place for feedback to and from their communities. Probably none. CANcern are a great example of how to set up and be responsive the needs of your community. They work at a street level, and build up to neighbourhoods and suburbs, so the communication is seamless to and from the people that matter. I really hope that they get representation of the 20 member community advisory team set up within CERA.

The announcement of CERA was the main event of the week. Who knows whether it will work or not? The proof will be in the actions of those at the top. I know that not everyone’s view can be heard, but everyone must have the opportunity to contribute their ideas and needs and wants. It reminds me that the most desirable form of governance is a benevolent dictatorship. I could do that. I’d be inclusive and I would do away with all the old school tie rubbish that goes on in this city. It’s so clubby, who you know, not what you know.

I’d get an international competition going for architects to design our CBD. I’d get every CBD building made up to 100% earthquake resilience, no building can be earthquake proof, and no more car parks in the central city. I’d have parks, playgrounds and trees, parking on the outskirts and free shuttle buses into the centre. Oh and by the way whoever says that parking at malls is great, complete bollocks. You have to have the luck of the Irish to find a park. And when eventually you do find a park you enter a soulless environment with piped music (particularly hate the Christmas carols) and people meandering around with blank looks on their faces.

I must have had just about enough beer for the fingers to flow tonight. This wasn’t intended just for me, this blog. If you are a CBD business owner and would like to contribute please let me know via twitter etc. The more the merrier, we all have issues and experiences and I am finding it cathartic to vent, and I’m sure you would too.

Until next time, be safe

Rob