This building, originally constructed in 1924 for New Zealand Automobile Ltd by builder P.C. Watt, has now been adapted to house apartments and commercial premises.
The early development of Taranaki Street is historically associated with the settlement of Te Aro and the growth of Courtenay Place. The land was originally subdivided in 1840 by the New Zealand Company’s Chief Surveyor Captain William Mein Smith. At this time the five acres of land that were to become Manners and Taranaki streets and Courtenay Place, were occupied by Te Aro Pa. By 1835 the pa was occupied by Ngati Haumia (of Taranaki iwi), Ngati Tupaia (of Ngati Ruanui iwi) and their Te Atiawa kin. The acquisition of Te Aro Pa, and its subsequent subdivision, was one of many controversial actions of the New Zealand Company in Wellington. In the 1870s any unsold land at Te Aro Pa was purchased by the Provincial Government so that Taranaki Street could be extended to the harbour.
The site at 31-37 Taranaki Street had a number of different owners between 1840 and the 1920s, and appears to have been occupied by a row of buildings by at least 1892. In 1923 it was sold to the New Zealand Automobile Association, which had this building constructed in 1924. The builder was P.C. Watt, and the application value was £9000. Although the original drawings show a strongly modelled Classical building - complete with rustication and quoins, giant-order columns, and a deeply modelled parapet with pediments over the two end bays – the building that survives today has a restrained palette of stylised Art Deco ornamentation. It is likely to have been built as a somewhat simplified version of the original design – but the reasons for this area unknown.
The Automobile Association (although under several iterations of the name) were the owners and primary occupants of the building, but space was also leased for offices throughout the time that the Automobile Association was in the building. The Automobile Association sold the building in 1994 to Adept Enterprises Limited. The building was altered to house apartments and commercial tenancies, and has since been divided into unit titles.
In 2005 the adjacent c.1908 commercial building at 39-43 Taranaki Street was demolished to make way for a new apartment building. Work on site was halted when foundation work for the new building uncovered the remains of Te Aro Pa. The plans for the new apartment building were amended - the planned two-storey basement was omitted so that the archaeology could be preserved on site, and in return the developer was permitted to extend the apartment building in height by two additional floors. The remains of the pa are now publically accessible in glass-encased displays. The area around the old Taranaki Street Extension must now be considered as high-risk for archaeological discovery.
