Christchurch Heritage Limited is proud to announce that it has saved yet another listed heritage building for the central city. Shands Emporium, formerly of 88 Hereford Street, was recently purchased and will sit perfectly facing Manchester Street beside the Trinity Church. Antony Gough the former owner of the Shands Emporium Building signed a Sale and Purchase Agreement with Christchurch Heritage Limited. The building cost $1. He said ‘This is a great result for this building and for heritage in general’. Shands, built in 1860, is Christchurch’s oldest wooden commercial building left in the central business district and its future in the central city was in peril. It is the last building of its kind in the CBD. Shand’s is typical of buildings from the early years of colonisation. It is listed as a Group 2 on the Christchurch District Plan and a Category 1 by Heritage New Zealand
It is not the first time that Shands has been endangered with annihilation. In the late 1970s the New Zealand Post Office planned a new telephone exchange in Hereford Street on land incorporating Shands Emporium site. Shands was earmarked for demolition and this resulted in a petition protesting its threatened existence being signed by several thousand people. In May 1981 the Ministerial requirement to designate the land was uplifted. The building was reprieved.
