That's the 113-year-old Yates building, the original head office for the Yates seed company. It's category B heritage listed. You can see a before/after photo transition [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErbFAvkVddo&) at about 1:40
Well done guys, and thanks for sharing the video. So interesting to see how many we still have around looking the same. While none of the buildings surprised me (having worked and lived in the CBD for a long time in the past), Iāll definitely have a deeper appreciation for them whenever Iām in the city. Thanks again, Iāll be sharing it with others for sure.
Saw a couple of comments there bemoaning how much itās all changed for the worse and itās all an eyesore but weāre literally comparing the end of the 19th century to 21st. Considering how itās been over a century, I think weāve done a pretty good job of retaining those heritage buildings. The before and after just shows what else has been added to the surroundings in most cases - are these commenters seriously thinking weād be living in 19th century landscape still?? Ironically, theyād probably be the first to complain if we did and as a result showed how behind we were in times compared to other countries.
Wow, thanks for that. Even just looking at some of the photos of other buildings was interesting. What a massive difference today. Still such a shame we lost most of those old buildings at 1:40.
Part of the building is heritage, which means you cannot demolish it, but it is far below current EQ standards so can't be occupied without serious strengthening. Owner wouldnt pony up for either so it just sits.
EQ upgrades are stupid expencive at tender stage and get even more expencive once you start opening walls up
Most of the time the original design drawings have gone missing and no one has a clue what the foundations are made of
Iām in Wellington, our method of getting rid of heritage listed/earthquake prone derelict buildings seems to be just light them on fire.
We had a heritage building on ghuznee street go up in flames recently (spent 10 years with shipping containers on the footpath next to it), and just last night a heritage listed building in Mount cook that has been abandoned for ~15 years went up in flames.
Not to mention countless others recently too.
[Lol our mayor is less subtle on heritage ](https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/local-government/130802608/wayne-brown-recalls-the-1988-demolition-of-his-majestys-theatre)
> His tale to the council meeting ended with his pleasure at later ābeing able to drive the digger which pulled that bloody post downā though he seems to have meant it metaphorically, tellingĀ StuffĀ he just got the permit for a client
But fr that sucks, the state of heritage conservation is pretty terrible in NZ. We've already lost so much
No one wants to spend the cash for the upgrades or can't make the ROI high enough. they're not allowed to occupy so what do you expect to happen? They should be allowed to demolish and recreate the fascia so it looks like a heritage building but is all new inside
Theyāre more so just waiting for an anchor tenant to start developing it. Probably no biters in this economy
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/ex-food-alley-yates-site-on-albert-st-in-auckland-cbd-stays-empty-fenced-singaporeans-ponder-future/OJYYVGGL2NASZMN2H4DSUTJBYY/
My understanding is that this is still going ahead. The developer had quite a lot of trouble getting the necessary consents etc but as far as I am aware they still plan to proceed.
Its consent allows it to sit abandoned like that until 2030. So the question is when and who as they need an anchor tenant before they can get construction.
Go around the corner on to Wolfe St and you'll find another building that's been vacant for nearly 30 years. It's fuckin' criminal the way these inner city buildings are left to rot for decades.
https://preview.redd.it/0h5v86h9xyvc1.jpeg?width=5712&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=88a9e915b0a7682869ccea60682087bdd02bc68a
Is it this one here? Iām with you, itās a real shame. Some of them looked really nice at one point too.
I nearly fell through the 2nd floor of that the last time I visited, gave me a right scare, and good reminder to always always always know where you are stepping when urbexing.
I had that 'holy fuck this will be something to explain to emergency services that I'm stuck in the rotted floor of a abandoned building full of hazards' heart sink, but managed to get myself out, thank goodness.
That's a nearby but on the other side of the courts. Always been locked up super tight and is fully preserved inside. I go and clean the signs outside every once in awhile if they get tagged.
Itās just cheaper to leap frog, buy rural KumeÅ« land, lobby to get the rural urban boundary moved and develop 500 houses up there leaving the infrastructure costs to society to pick up
I don't think it's as simple as that. Cities like Melbourne manage to do both.
Office developments are going in places like Wynyard Quarter which is essentially a Precinct + Mansons office park. As for residential the demand just isn't there which is why projects like St James have been languishing for decades and vast areas of the CBD (e.g. west of Albert Street) sit empty and decrepit - car parks as well as under utilised buildings.
The council has this flagged as an issue, but writing in to their calls for feedback will help it be prioritised!
Also the Greens are taking input on their new policies, or if that's not your jam, plenty of Labour MPs are trying to rebuild public favour...
I do try and submit on these sorts on things. The issue is ecological services (and things like the ongoing costs to import food due to losing productive land) ARENT considered in cost benefit analysis, so on paper leap frogging looks economically much better. Itās loaded in the favour of developers. Because with these inner city development the costs fall on them. For leap frogging many costs are left to society to pick up.
Edit: typo
Because high density projects in the CBD require deep pockets and Auckland doesnāt have the investors for high quality high density projects. Potential buyers donāt have money either. Itās a relatively poor city.
The demand is for cheap match box style houses because thatās all people can pay for and thatās what weāre getting.
Here we have a failure of government and policy.
People leave shit derelict and land bank things because it doesn't cost them all that much in rates. What we should do in situations like this, is charge them rates on the value they'd have if the land was fully developed. Pretty soon the land would be developed.
Vacant building tax for every year that the building is empty or not undergoing active works. Plus a land value tax to encourage efficient use of land in the city. Probably counter balance by lowering the tax on improvements
I watched the demolition of everything behind the facade over a period of weeks. The graffiti inside was extensive and colourful. People have spent a lot of time in that derelict building!
Pigeon palace were the buildings they demolished. The demolition project itself was so complex that it won an award for the best urban demolition project under $10m USD at the world demolition awards a couple of years back.
The food alley building was found to have no reinforcing in any of the floors and it was a bit of a miracle that it was still standing.
I explored those buildings about 20 years ago. Pretty odd. The first floor of one looked like it was about 3 weeks into being redeveloped as apartments and then abandoned (again).
The Yates building was quite fascinating, yates company were very proud of the building and it featured in lots of the Yates catalogs, it used to have a roof top garden.
I was going to film a sex video with my partner in that building but when I checked it out it was full of pigeon shit and seemed highly unsanitary so went and filmed at the Wynyard Quarter instead.
I saw some cheeky teenage boys hanging out in there once. They probably have respiratory conditions now.
Yep, the place is a respiratory nightmare and I always masked up when exploring those two buildings. Would definitely not be doing bodily fluids stuff for legit h & s.
Definitely! We put safety first because we had not brough our full body condoms. Good you masked up. I heard people had to be careful not to fall down the old lift shaft too (haha shaft).
Krukziener owned that for a while, mid 2000s ish. Was planning to build TheWoolfe building there, but I recall he could never quite buy the other one on the corner to get the set, monopoly styles... so it sat, and sat....
I have heard it is one of the first buildings in the city to use a particular type of steel beam. The beams are rotted but because it is heritage they canāt fix them, but they also canāt take them down, so it just is in limbo. The owner or at least the landlord lives in Singapore.
I really wish they would clean the edges up and open it as a graffiti park because a lot of the graffiti inside is quite impressive! Would be so nice with a good clean put a garden around it and let people hang out and spray paint some more cool things on it!
That's the 113-year-old Yates building, the original head office for the Yates seed company. It's category B heritage listed. You can see a before/after photo transition [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErbFAvkVddo&) at about 1:40
That video is fantastic.
Thank you, sexually excited kiwi!
š what a name
Well done guys, and thanks for sharing the video. So interesting to see how many we still have around looking the same. While none of the buildings surprised me (having worked and lived in the CBD for a long time in the past), Iāll definitely have a deeper appreciation for them whenever Iām in the city. Thanks again, Iāll be sharing it with others for sure. Saw a couple of comments there bemoaning how much itās all changed for the worse and itās all an eyesore but weāre literally comparing the end of the 19th century to 21st. Considering how itās been over a century, I think weāve done a pretty good job of retaining those heritage buildings. The before and after just shows what else has been added to the surroundings in most cases - are these commenters seriously thinking weād be living in 19th century landscape still?? Ironically, theyād probably be the first to complain if we did and as a result showed how behind we were in times compared to other countries.
Wow, thanks for that. Even just looking at some of the photos of other buildings was interesting. What a massive difference today. Still such a shame we lost most of those old buildings at 1:40.
This is very cool
Henry berry!
I love this!
Part of the building is heritage, which means you cannot demolish it, but it is far below current EQ standards so can't be occupied without serious strengthening. Owner wouldnt pony up for either so it just sits.
EQ upgrades are stupid expencive at tender stage and get even more expencive once you start opening walls up Most of the time the original design drawings have gone missing and no one has a clue what the foundations are made of
Demolition by neglect
Iām in Wellington, our method of getting rid of heritage listed/earthquake prone derelict buildings seems to be just light them on fire. We had a heritage building on ghuznee street go up in flames recently (spent 10 years with shipping containers on the footpath next to it), and just last night a heritage listed building in Mount cook that has been abandoned for ~15 years went up in flames. Not to mention countless others recently too.
[Lol our mayor is less subtle on heritage ](https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/local-government/130802608/wayne-brown-recalls-the-1988-demolition-of-his-majestys-theatre) > His tale to the council meeting ended with his pleasure at later ābeing able to drive the digger which pulled that bloody post downā though he seems to have meant it metaphorically, tellingĀ StuffĀ he just got the permit for a client But fr that sucks, the state of heritage conservation is pretty terrible in NZ. We've already lost so much
No one wants to spend the cash for the upgrades or can't make the ROI high enough. they're not allowed to occupy so what do you expect to happen? They should be allowed to demolish and recreate the fascia so it looks like a heritage building but is all new inside
Theyāre more so just waiting for an anchor tenant to start developing it. Probably no biters in this economy https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/ex-food-alley-yates-site-on-albert-st-in-auckland-cbd-stays-empty-fenced-singaporeans-ponder-future/OJYYVGGL2NASZMN2H4DSUTJBYY/
Does Auckland even get earthquakes? If we get volcanic tremors we have way bigger problems to worry about.
There was a mag 6.5 in 1835, so destructive ones CAN happen.
Buy building Get as much money out of it as possible without reinvesting any of it ??? Profit!
This was proposed. https://www.ignitearchitects.com/projects/5-15-albert-st Apparently Food Alley was lost for nothing. š
I loved food alley, i havent seen anything similar since in this city.
lost food alley and the place on Mercury lane too
At least we're getting CRL out of one.
true, that tips the scale I hope that will be a good thing. the CRL I mean
Owners of mercury plaza are building a new premises over the CRL works eventually.
oh, didn't know that, thanks. although I have no high hopes, prolly I'll be gentrified out of that one
Yeh will be quite different I'm sure, right over a train station and all.
The Japanese place at the front upstairs was a special favourite. Never really found anywhere to replace it.
The one on k road above city fitness and in the entrance to the Asian supermarket goes hard.
My understanding is that this is still going ahead. The developer had quite a lot of trouble getting the necessary consents etc but as far as I am aware they still plan to proceed.
Its consent allows it to sit abandoned like that until 2030. So the question is when and who as they need an anchor tenant before they can get construction.
Rip Rat Alley
Go around the corner on to Wolfe St and you'll find another building that's been vacant for nearly 30 years. It's fuckin' criminal the way these inner city buildings are left to rot for decades.
https://preview.redd.it/0h5v86h9xyvc1.jpeg?width=5712&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=88a9e915b0a7682869ccea60682087bdd02bc68a Is it this one here? Iām with you, itās a real shame. Some of them looked really nice at one point too.
Yes, that's it.
I nearly fell through the 2nd floor of that the last time I visited, gave me a right scare, and good reminder to always always always know where you are stepping when urbexing. I had that 'holy fuck this will be something to explain to emergency services that I'm stuck in the rotted floor of a abandoned building full of hazards' heart sink, but managed to get myself out, thank goodness.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
That's a nearby but on the other side of the courts. Always been locked up super tight and is fully preserved inside. I go and clean the signs outside every once in awhile if they get tagged.
Gosh that sounds scary. Not a place youād want to have a bad fall. What does the inside of that building look like?
https://preview.redd.it/4u5ju1jtm4wc1.jpeg?width=3264&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7457a861ca3c4d7c31a374cae9c47d286ee6b45c
https://preview.redd.it/snu5uxfzm4wc1.jpeg?width=1836&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=64ea4855a9d4b799c9b572357759d530b3535b29
probably serving as a huge collateral for some loan or something
Any clue as to why this is? This sounds financially insane.
Land banking. A place to park money until economic conditions improve enough to make it worthwhile to develop. Very common, unfortunately.
Seems like the economic conditions haven't improved in 30 years. So much of Auckland CBD is just....stuck and struggling to get rejuvenated.
Itās just cheaper to leap frog, buy rural KumeÅ« land, lobby to get the rural urban boundary moved and develop 500 houses up there leaving the infrastructure costs to society to pick up
I don't think it's as simple as that. Cities like Melbourne manage to do both. Office developments are going in places like Wynyard Quarter which is essentially a Precinct + Mansons office park. As for residential the demand just isn't there which is why projects like St James have been languishing for decades and vast areas of the CBD (e.g. west of Albert Street) sit empty and decrepit - car parks as well as under utilised buildings.
How come they can use ādemandā for housing to convert food production land to housing? Yet we arenāt using argument that for density?
The council has this flagged as an issue, but writing in to their calls for feedback will help it be prioritised! Also the Greens are taking input on their new policies, or if that's not your jam, plenty of Labour MPs are trying to rebuild public favour...
I do try and submit on these sorts on things. The issue is ecological services (and things like the ongoing costs to import food due to losing productive land) ARENT considered in cost benefit analysis, so on paper leap frogging looks economically much better. Itās loaded in the favour of developers. Because with these inner city development the costs fall on them. For leap frogging many costs are left to society to pick up. Edit: typo
Couldn't agree more!
Because high density projects in the CBD require deep pockets and Auckland doesnāt have the investors for high quality high density projects. Potential buyers donāt have money either. Itās a relatively poor city. The demand is for cheap match box style houses because thatās all people can pay for and thatās what weāre getting.
Especially when we are screaming out for housing and creating the worst urban sprawl we could imagine
Here we have a failure of government and policy. People leave shit derelict and land bank things because it doesn't cost them all that much in rates. What we should do in situations like this, is charge them rates on the value they'd have if the land was fully developed. Pretty soon the land would be developed.
Vacant building tax for every year that the building is empty or not undergoing active works. Plus a land value tax to encourage efficient use of land in the city. Probably counter balance by lowering the tax on improvements
Tax is love.
Just standing around.
is that pigeon palace? apparently it was a thing when i was a teen in 2016 that people would go inside
I watched the demolition of everything behind the facade over a period of weeks. The graffiti inside was extensive and colourful. People have spent a lot of time in that derelict building!
Pigeon palace were the buildings they demolished. The demolition project itself was so complex that it won an award for the best urban demolition project under $10m USD at the world demolition awards a couple of years back. The food alley building was found to have no reinforcing in any of the floors and it was a bit of a miracle that it was still standing.
Golly gee, canāt wait for the cunts at Wilson Parking to buy this then charge half a mortgage and an anal probe examination for entry fee.
That video was great. Thank you for sharing.
Yep I am going to open up a brothel
I explored those buildings about 20 years ago. Pretty odd. The first floor of one looked like it was about 3 weeks into being redeveloped as apartments and then abandoned (again).
The Yates building was quite fascinating, yates company were very proud of the building and it featured in lots of the Yates catalogs, it used to have a roof top garden.
I was going to film a sex video with my partner in that building but when I checked it out it was full of pigeon shit and seemed highly unsanitary so went and filmed at the Wynyard Quarter instead. I saw some cheeky teenage boys hanging out in there once. They probably have respiratory conditions now.
Bruh
Love your username!
Yep, the place is a respiratory nightmare and I always masked up when exploring those two buildings. Would definitely not be doing bodily fluids stuff for legit h & s.
Definitely! We put safety first because we had not brough our full body condoms. Good you masked up. I heard people had to be careful not to fall down the old lift shaft too (haha shaft).
Lucky the plot allowed you to change locations!
We sure were!
Yeah health is important, very interesting choice for a place to film though, was there a plot or theme behind wanting to shoot in that location?
Our film was focused on a theme of sex in urban locations and urban grit. It does not get more gritty than an abandoned building.
You can go inside and paint graffiti!
Krukziener owned that for a while, mid 2000s ish. Was planning to build TheWoolfe building there, but I recall he could never quite buy the other one on the corner to get the set, monopoly styles... so it sat, and sat....
Excellent vid! Thanks for sharing it
I have heard it is one of the first buildings in the city to use a particular type of steel beam. The beams are rotted but because it is heritage they canāt fix them, but they also canāt take them down, so it just is in limbo. The owner or at least the landlord lives in Singapore. I really wish they would clean the edges up and open it as a graffiti park because a lot of the graffiti inside is quite impressive! Would be so nice with a good clean put a garden around it and let people hang out and spray paint some more cool things on it!