Ballantyne's fire

Container Mall (originally called Re:START) was a temporary mall built from shipping containers in Christchurch Central City, New Zealand. It had been a response to the 22 February 2011 Christchurch earthquake, which destroyed most buildings in City Mall (Cashel and High Streets), and resulted in the central city being cordoned off from public access while buildings were being demolished. Initially considered a short-term response to the lack of permanent buildings, Re:START was popular with locals and tourists alike and remained open for business until January 2018.

The Christchurch Bus Interchange is the bus station in the Christchurch Central City in New Zealand. Built as one of the 17 anchor projects identified in the Christchurch Central Recovery Plan, it opened in May 2015 after the previous Bus Exchange had been damaged in the 2011 Christchurch earthquake.

The Hallensteins Building was a contemporary tower in central Christchurch, located on the High Street end of City Mall. It was sometimes referred to as the Unlimited Northern Tower due to its use as the main Unlimited Paenga Tawhiti campus building. The tower had five floors with a modern exterior, large glass windows, balconies, and a mezzanine floor on the top floor. The tower was built in 2004 for Hallensteins Glassons to replace their former 1920s premises. Construction was completed in 2005 by Leighs Construction. The bottom two floors were used as retail space for a Hallensteins Brothers store, accessible from Cashel Street. The upper portion of the tower was used by Unlimited Paenga Tawhiti exclusively. The Hallensteins Building was demolished in June 2012 after being cordoned off in the central city red zone. Details about the condition of the building are not known; in the 2010 Canterbury earthquake, the building had suffered minor damage but promptly reopened. Hallensteins Brothers had operated from the site for over 100 years before the building was closed in 2011. A new Hallensteins Brothers store was rebuilt on the site in 2016, linked to the ANZ Center.

City Mall is the main pedestrian mall in the central city of Christchurch, New Zealand, comprising two sections of Cashel Street plus the Bridge of Remembrance and one section of High Street. It is also known colloquially as Cashel Mall. The Bridge of Remembrance was pedestrianised in 1976. The main mall was closed to traffic on 11 January 1982 and formally reopened as a pedestrian mall on 7 August, but it was not until 1992 that the entire mall was paved. The mall was redeveloped between 2006 and 2009, and track was installed for an expansion of the heritage tram network. The September 2010 Canterbury earthquake caused damage to some buildings, but the Boxing Day aftershock, directly underneath the city, caused even more damage, including building failures. The 6.3 magnitude February 2011 Christchurch earthquake devastated the mall; the façades of many buildings collapsed and there were several fatalities. The centre of the city was subsequently closed to allow demolition work to proceed. Structures affected included most of the heritage buildings in the mall that are or were registered by Heritage New Zealand. Part of City Mall, the section of Cashel Street from Oxford Terrace to Colombo Street, was the first part of the central city to open again, on Saturday, 29 October 2011, marked by a ceremony at which the Prime Minister John Key officiated.

The Fisher's Building (also known as the Hanafins Building) was a 19th-century Venetian Gothic building located in central Christchurch, New Zealand. It was designed in 1872 by architect William Armson and constructed from concrete and brick in 1880 on a central city site leased to Thomas Richard Fisher, who ran a tea and grocery store. The building was known for its prominent verandah, ornate design, and distinct corner shape. A category-one heritage-listed property, the Fisher's Building was one of the few surviving examples of Venetian Gothic architecture in Christchurch. It was also the last surviving structure on Hereford Street designed by Armson, who had designed several commercial buildings in the area. Built as an extension to what was then the City Chambers, it occupied a corner site on the intersection of High Street and Hereford Street, giving it a distinctive triangle shape from above. Following Fisher's death in 1890, the building was inherited by his estate and passed to numerous owners in the subsequent decades, until it was purchased in 1922 by Henry Slater Richards, who transferred it to his three sons in 1926. The brothers held joint interest until the 1970s, when it was transferred to Pyne Gould Guinness Limited in 1979 following a successful restoration project. In 1929, the building became associated with James George Hanafin, who operated a chemist from property. In the 1980s, his descending relative Lawry Hanafin opened a photography store from the property, operating it for 30 years as one of the last tenants to run a business from the site. Despite being strengthened and well cared for, the Fisher's Building was badly damaged in the 2011 Christchurch earthquake. It was demolished in July 2011, with Hanafin watching the demolition. As of 2024, the site has remained empty and is used for car parking.

The Hack Circle or Hack was a nickname given to an amphitheatre in central Christchurch, New Zealand. It was built as part of the second phase of developing a pedestrian mall in the central city in 1989 and was officially opened on 6 December of that same year by then mayor Vicki Buck. For a time it was a popular Hacky Sack venue (hence the name), later it became a popular hang out for "black-dressed emos, goths, heavy metal fans and United States style gangstas". A 2004 survey conducted by the Christchurch City Council identified the Hack Circle as a popular place for young people to "hang out, smoke, meet friends etc." The same survey found that 90% of 13- to 15-year-olds and 94% of 16- to 18-year-olds came to the central city in their spare time. Christchurch police claimed the Hack Circle was a venue for criminal activity; on 20 October 2006, a 19-year-old was arrested for swinging a metal pipe around, and police claim that aggravated robbery, assault and the trafficking of cannabis happened in the area. Sergeant Murry Hurst told The Press that "Ninety per cent of the kids hanging around there are fine, the other 10% cause the problems."In February 2007 Senior Sergeant Glenn Dobson told The Press that the young people in the Hack Circle were not as intimidating as they could look to others, and commented that "[W]e can't move them on because they look different". Millionaire Christchurch property owner Antony Gough, who is considered one of the most powerful people in the city was an advocate of stronger security for the Cashel Street mall, particularly the Hack Circle, telling The Press that the people who associate there "are just very scary".

The Chief Post Office or Christchurch Central Post Office, originally known as the Government Buildings, is located in Cathedral Square, Christchurch, New Zealand. The building was initially a post office with Immigration, Customs and Public Works departments. The Government Buildings were later replaced by the new Government Buildings opened in 1913, and the Chief Post Office remained on-site. In 1881, New Zealand’s first telephone exchange was installed in the building. Post services were offered from the building until 2000 when it was re-purposed to house a Christchurch tourist information centre and a restaurant, café and offices. Following the 2011 Christchurch earthquake the building closed. In the early 2020s repairs and strengthening took place. The building was planned to reopen in 2023 in stages, and eventually include a restaurant, shops, and a visitor information centre, under the name "The Grand". The structure is registered with Heritage New Zealand as a Category I heritage building.

The Westpac Canterbury Centre (also known as the Westpac Building or Westpac Trust Building) was a landmark tower on the corner of High Street and Cashel Street in the center of Christchurch, New Zealand. Prior to the February 2011 earthquake, it was considered the 9th tallest building in Christchurch, standing at 55 meters tall (14 floors).The building had a distinct look, with rounded concrete columns on each corner, and a pointed triangular roof. From above, it was shaped like an elongated hexagon.

The Justice and Emergency Services Precinct is a building complex in central Christchurch, New Zealand. It comprises three buildings: the Justice Building, the Emergency Services Building, and a car park for operational vehicles. It was constructed in the mid-2010s to house New Zealand Police and the Department of Corrections, law courts including the Christchurch District Court, as well as Fire and Emergency New Zealand, St John New Zealand, and the local and government Civil Defence agencies. The combined floor size of the Precinct is 42,000m2 and is the largest multi-agency co-location project by the government in the history of New Zealand to date. The Precinct was developed as a key anchor project in the rebuild of Christchurch following the 2011 Christchurch earthquake. It was the first significant public building constructed and opened by the government following the earthquakes. The building was opened by Prime Minister Bill English in a ceremony on 12 September 2017. In December 2019, two years after opening, the Precinct had undergone 1800 unplanned repairs at a cost of NZ$5.5 million, including replacing unsafe glass, fixing multiple leaks, and roughly 500 call-outs to repair the air conditioning system. The Public Service Association subsequently criticised the issues in a public statement.

Riverside Market is a food hall on Oxford Terrace in the Christchurch Central City, New Zealand.

Christchurch Central City or Christchurch City Centre is the geographical centre and the heart of Christchurch, New Zealand. It is defined as the area within the Four Avenues (Bealey Avenue, Fitzgerald Avenue, Moorhouse Avenue and Deans Avenue) and thus includes the densely built up central city, some less dense surrounding areas of residential, educational and industrial usage, and green space including Hagley Park, the Christchurch Botanic Gardens and the Barbadoes Street Cemetery. It suffered heavy damage in the 2010 Canterbury earthquake and was devastated in the 2011 Christchurch earthquake. Following this second earthquake, the Central City Red Zone was set up and, with a gradually shrinking area, remained inaccessible except to authorised contractors until June 2013. However, proposals to relocate the city centre elsewhere, to avoid future damage, were considered both uneconomical (as much of the infrastructure was still mainly intact) and unnecessary, as the rebuilt city centre would be to modern building standards so as to be able to withstand similar quakes and liquefaction in the future.

Cathedral Square, locally known simply as the Square, is the geographical centre and heart of Christchurch, New Zealand, where the city's Anglican cathedral, ChristChurch Cathedral is located. The square stands at the theoretical crossing of the city's two main orthogonal streets, Colombo Street and Worcester Street, though in practice both have been either blocked off or detoured around the square itself. The cathedral was badly damaged in the February 2011 Christchurch earthquake.