Big Projects Afoot

Gisborne is literally seething with building activity these days, involving the spending of hundreds of thousands of pounds. Workmen are now getting the framework up to the top of the massive five-storey T. and G. building at the corner of Gladstone Road and Grey Street, soon to be matched by an equally impressive Government Life building on the opposite corner. Contracts have been let for the new airport terminal at Darton Field and for £60,000 worth of telephone exchange extension in Childers Road, The city's first Free Kindergarten is to be built early next year. A new school is going up at Wainui Beach, and another is scheduled for the Elgin district. Because of labour shortages at Hastings, Watties will probably concentrate on expanding their Gisborne plant, and this could mean still more buildings. Extensive contracts for water and sewer reticulation are nearing completion, and the time is approaching when the complex sewerage outfall scheme will be coming off the drawing boards. Thousands of pounds are being spent on remodelling upper Gladstone Road. The Harbour Board has plans to spend more than half a million pounds in the next five years for an overseas harbour. A new courthouse is in the offing.

Two quite unrelated projects assume unusual interest when taken together.

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Is a scale drawing of the £50,000 water reservoir to be built on Nob Hill at Kaiti, as seen from Beach Road. It is 128 feet across, with walls 26 feet high, and a height from ground level to top of dome of 42 feet.

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Is an interior view in the new YMCA stadium at Childers Road reserve. The main building is 100 feet long and 37 feet high. In other words, if you think the YM building is big, and it is, wait till you see the reservoir on Nob Hill. It will hold 2,000,000 gallons of water, which is about one day's supply for Gisborne at the moment.