Saving the St. James Theatre
ENTERTAINMENT | MAHI
Written by Thomas Giblin (he/him) | @thegreengiblin | Entertainment Editor
In the beating heart of Tāmaki Makaurau, a slumbering giant, hides in plain sight. Like Rangitoto, it lays dormant. The St. James Theatre, an icon of the city skyline, will soon awaken from its slumber. Mothballed for the last 15 years, the vaudeville theatre, a Category 1 listed building, first opened in 1928. The following year, it screened its first film, the pre-Code musical comedy Gold Diggers of Broadway. Ninety years later, this historical jewel faced demolition after a devastating fire forced the theatre to close in 2007. Yet the St. James has been saved and will aim to be reopened by its 100th anniversary.
Most Gen-Z in Tāmaki Makaurau won't know the St James by name, but they'll know it by sight. It's the boarded-up building that towers over Academy Cinema and Lorne Street. You'll have walked past it dozens of times without knowing it. The comment section on a Facebook page set up to campaign for its restoration is rife with impassioned and lucid nostalgia. Former punters remember screenings of Clint Eastwood films and rip-roaring gigs. Miles Davis, Jeff Buckley, David Byrne, the Arctic Monkeys, and even Kanye West have graced the St. James and its hallowed stage. But, if you're in your mid-twenties like me or younger, in our lifetimes, we've never experienced the magic of the St. James on a Friday night. That will soon change, owing to the enthusiasm and dedication of several parties—namely, Steve Bielby, a former AUT student, the heir to the Target Furniture empire and a passionate heritage architecture conservator.
I meet Bielby outside the St. James on a typically dreary Tāmaki Makaurau morning. Like the White Rabbit from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, he guards a side door as if he were the guardian of a portal to a different world. In a sense, Bielby is. This side door is only open for a minute or so while we make small talk, and he has to ward off several curious schoolchildren. Bielby can tell when the school holidays are because the number of trespassers increases. The real threat is thieves, who, in 2022, stripped the theatre of all its copper wiring and cables over a number of days. These thieves even stole a striking bronze statue from the grand marble staircase, which Bielbly, à la Nicolas Cage in National Treasure, had to track down another of. This search led him to the antiquities underworld of Europe and the backyard of a house on the outskirts of Paris. In that backyard was an exact copy of the statue he had been so desperately searching for.
Beyond this staircase, past the crude penis graffitied on the wall, is Bielby's makeshift office. Documents are strewn over a large wooden desk. Office chairs sit perched. This dreary dwelling is seemingly the only space in St. James that has entered the 21st century. It took Bielby over a year to bring fibre into the theatre—a facet of restoration as crucial as repairing the foundations.
We make our way from his office into the 2nd tier of steep seating that looks onto a gaping cavern. Like a Pinctada, a saltwater oyster, the pearl of the St. James is found in its innards. The rows of seats that used to line this tier have been stripped out, but the theatre's ornate Spanish Colonial style is remarkably well preserved. You only have to look upwards in bewildered wonder at the domed Baroque roof to realize the historical significance of the St. James. Its elegant and ostentatious details starkly contrast the theatre's exterior. But, if you look downwards, where the 1st tier of seating used to be there's not even a floor, just a hagged mixture of dirt and rubble.
Even for the most optimistic of minds, it's a challenge to imagine that by 2028, Bielby will have restored the St. James to its former glory, but his confidence is infectious. He's drawn to projects that "are often called unsolvable" and are "ultra-complicated." They "take a long period of time" and "large amounts of money", but the challenge is what drew Bielby to heritage buildings. The St. James is a step up from the number of smaller restorations he's already done. But, if completed, this legacy project will serve Tāmaki Makaurau for generations.
When you're cautiously tiptoeing around trip hazards, it's hard to conduct an interview, so Bielby and I find a spot to sit. Among an expanse of mouldy carpet, wooden floorboards and pigeon poop, he explains how he enjoys the "quagmire of regulation." It's about arguing and reasoning "which pieces of regulation have more authority than others because these buildings don't comply." Much of the St. James is non-compliant as Bielby gestures to the handrails before us. "If we raise the handrails, in terms of sightlines, we lose the front row of three rows of seats." There's a quid pro quo. "We can comply and raise the handrails, but then you get a third of the amount of people in there."
At the heart of any heritage building preservation and conservation project, there's a tension "between the historical importance of the building and bringing it up to standard, but also respecting the building and its original qualities." But the pressing matter for Bielby for nearly a decade had been where he would find the significant funds needed to bring the St. James up to standard.
The restoration of the theatre was entwined with an "idea that we could put an apartment building around it, and if we could put a few extra floors on that apartment building, that money could flow into the theatre and help kick start" this project. However, the plans for the $250 million associated apartment building never substantiated, and the theatre was in a "do or die" position. In 2023, the St. James was given a financial lifeline. After years of campaigning for its restoration, Bielby and vocal campaigners such as Chlöe Swarbrick, Bob Kerridge Jr and heritage advisor George Farrant were rewarded. The Labour government promised $15 million to help restore the St James, matching the pledge made by the Auckland Council in 2015. Despite a new government and mayor, the support for the theatre's restoration is still there. Biebly is confident this project will finally cross the line.
There are conditions attached to the promised funding. One of these conditions is that stage one of the restoration of the St James must have begun by June 30. This stage of the project is "all the essential things that the theatre needs to operate." Regulatory compliance and structural upgrades. There will be a public consultation process to figure out the "specific stuff" in stage two. Will the St James be more like The Civic, the ASB Waterfront Theatre or Spark Arena? Part of the conversation around stage two is whether or not Biebly hands it off to an entity that manages and operates the theatre. The grand Palais Theatre in Melbourne also desperately needed repair but was restored to its former glory, and Live Nation now manages the venue. Holding over 120 events a year, the Palais Theatre is a touchstone that the St James can look to, but its commercial model means there's less time for community arts groups to use the space. The issue of how the theatre is used and by whom will be figured out by stage three. This stage is when the St James goes turnkey and is open for the wider public to enjoy.
That date, June 30, is two weeks in the past when this issue goes to print and arrives on stands. So, as you wander Wellesley Street, dreading a two-hour lecture or a long commute home, take a slight detour and check in on the St James. You might catch a glimpse of the beloved theatre, once the heartbeat of Tāmaki Makaurau's central business district, being brought back to life.
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