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New Regent Street

1932 establishments in New Zealand2011 Christchurch earthquakeBuildings and structures in ChristchurchChristchurch Central CityEngvarB from February 2016
Heritage New Zealand Category 1 historic places in Canterbury, New ZealandHeritage New Zealand historic areas in the Canterbury RegionPedestrian malls in New ZealandStreets in ChristchurchTourist attractions in Christchurch
New Regent Street In Spring
New Regent Street In Spring

New Regent Street is a pedestrian mall in Christchurch. Built as a private development in the early 1930s with 40 shops in Spanish Mission architectural style, it is one of the city's major tourist attractions. Providing a number of small shops as a comprehensive development was an advanced idea at the time, and New Regent Street is regarded as a forerunner to modern shopping malls. Due to its coherent architectural character, the buildings in the streets are listed as Category I heritage items by Heritage New Zealand, and in addition, the entire street has a historic area listing. The street was pedestrianised in 1994 in preparation for the introduction of the Christchurch heritage tram, which began operation in February 1995. Damaged in the February 2011 Christchurch earthquake, the street and buildings reopened in April 2013, and the tram returned from November of that year. Following the 2016 Valentine's Day earthquake, five of the buildings that had not been repaired after the previous earthquakes have been cordoned off, which stopped the tram from operating on its original heritage loop until May.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article New Regent Street (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

New Regent Street
New Regent Street, Christchurch Central City (Linwood-Central-Heathcote Community)

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Wikipedia: New Regent StreetContinue reading on Wikipedia

Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N -43.529263888889 ° E 172.63871944444 °
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Address

New Regent Street 24
8011 Christchurch, Central City (Linwood-Central-Heathcote Community)
Canterbury, New Zealand
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New Regent Street In Spring
New Regent Street In Spring
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PGC Building
PGC Building

The PGC Building (also known as the Pyne Gould Corporation building or PGC House) was a five-story postmodern office building in Christchurch, New Zealand. It became infamously associated with the 2011 Christchurch earthquake, with images of the failed structure and stories of trapped survivors having been widely broadcast. Eighteen people were killed in the building during the earthquake, and many more were injured, in what was described as a "catastrophic collapse." It was the second most deadly incident in the earthquake after the CTV Building collapse. Built in the mid-1960s, it was originally used as an office space for the Christchurch Drainage Board. Ownership was transferred to Pyne Gould Corporation in 1997. Over the next decade, the company undertook several projects to renovate the building and also explored options to structurally strengthen it. In 2011 at the time of its collapse, the PGC Building was home to several related companies: PGC, Marac Finance, Perpetual Trust, Leech and Partners, and Marsh Insurance, which operated across different levels. The building had been declared safe to open after four assessments following the 2010 Canterbury earthquake and subsequent aftershocks, but some staff in the building raised concerns after noticing cracks appearing in columns. A Royal Commission report found that the ductility of the building was poor and the design could not have legally been built according to 2011 building code standards. At the time it was designed, ductile detailing processes had not been introduced as standard. Consequently, the PGC Building was earthquake-prone by modern standards. Despite structural performance having been investigated during the renovation in the late 90s, the standards of the time did not flag the PGC Building as being at risk, and subsequent renovations were considered to be of good standard. After earthquake performance standards were changed in the 2000s, Holmes Consulting Group performed a full seismic assessment in 2007 on the structure and deemed it would perform "reasonably well" in a report that was accepted by the Christchurch City Council. Other structural assessments also did not find the building posed a risk. The commission concluded that the main factor in the failure of the building was the intense force in the east–west direction of the building overwhelming the structure, which met less than 40% of the building code in 2011.