Princes Wharf

Princes Wharf is a former commercial wharf on the Auckland waterfront, in Auckland City, New Zealand, which has been redeveloped into a multi-story high-class mixed-use development and cruise ship terminal.

While generally considered a success in redevelopment, as is the close-by Viaduct Basin, some critics have called its architecture 'urbanely sterile', while others have remarked on the restrictions private owners have placed on public access rights. Also criticised was the fact that many of the public facilities (like art galleries or markets) that were envisaged in the original plan change from a wharf to a new use did not materialise, and in the view of some, have instead seen the wharf become dominated by uses like car parking.

Princes Wharf was opened 12 May 1929 by Earl Jellicoe, having been planned and built between 1919 and 192. The HMS Hood, the then-largest battlecruiser of the Royal Navy, berthed at the wharf for the commissioning, showing the strategic importance the British Empire attributed to the naval facilities of its colonies.

After World War II, the wharf, and Auckland itself, gained in importance both as starting point and destination for an increasing number of ocean liners (especially in the early post-war years when long-distance air travel was not as established yet), and later on, cruise ships. Ships like the Rangitane and Ruahine often berthed here, and in 1961, a dedicated passenger terminal was built on the wharf.

In the early 1990s, plans were introduced to redevelop the wharf and add new functions to a site that had become under-used in some respects. With the new buildings designed to be reminiscent of a ship, the redevelopment of the wharf started in 1998.

The wharf now contains the renovated Overseas Passenger Terminal (berthing of cruise ships) of Ports of Auckland, a Hilton hotel, various restaurants as well as apartments, office space and a multi-story parking building. Princes Wharf also contains the largest apartment of New Zealand, a luxury residence built for one of the wharf's developers with 1,061 m² of internal floor space and decks of 416 m² of deck space. However, a number of the hotel apartments - like many buildings constructed in the 1990s in New Zealand, are having weathertightness issues, and as of 2010, are undergoing substantial maintenance.

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