Re:Start shopping centre - Christchurch

DON SCOTT/Fairfax NZ

THE OPTIMIST: Paul Lonsdale in City Mall's Re:Start shopping centre, a project he and others achieved under great pressure.

Smile, though your heart is aching...

MARC GREENHILL

Last updated 05:00 06/01/2012

Paul Lonsdale could not believe the scene he was witnessing from the window of his High St office in central Christchurch on February 22 last year.
The sight of terrified residents and crumbling buildings was a far cry from the setting just 10 days earlier, when the Boxing Day replay sales he organised set tills ringing after trade was severely disrupted by strong aftershocks on December 26, 2010.
February's quake set the tone for a year that created many professional and personal challenges for the Central City Business Association manager, but which ended with an ambitious project credited with reviving the central city.
The City Mall's Re:Start shopping precinct – a collection of 27 temporary shops housed in brightly painted shipping containers – has been a hit since opening on October 29.
Lonsdale's first recovery idea, the Boxing Day replay sale, was an off-the-cuff remark that generated more than $1 million in sales.
He said his role changed drastically after September 2010 "in hours and in stress" as he sought to save businesses, many of which were in damaged buildings or behind cordons for several weeks.
"Waking up on September 4, you had two choices. You stay in bed or you get up and try to make a difference. I suppose I chose the latter," he said.
"The 22nd [of February] was personally very upsetting and obviously very upsetting for everybody in Christchurch because it is the day, I think, that Christchurch changed forever."
He would have been walking in the City Mall, Cashel St or High St that day had it not been for a back injury.
"I'd got up three or four times around that time to go for a walk, which I used to do on a daily basis, but I just sat down because my back was too sore," he said.
"The earthquake came and I went, 'Oh no'.
"I couldn't even get out of my chair and I was just watching my furniture dancing around the room."
Lonsdale looked up to see heritage building facades crashing down and immediately thought of his fiancee, Denise, who worked in Poplar St, off Lichfield St.
"I was very concerned about her because of the amount of bricks there," he said.
"I packed my computer up, knowing I wasn't going to get back into the city for a sizeable amount of time, and walking down the street I felt like an alien walking through a disaster movie.
"It was quite disturbing. I stopped to talk one of the guys working on a tram and asked if he was OK, but I couldn't actually get any sense out of him."
He joined a "rattled" Denise in Madras St.
The couple were due to be married on March 10, but their venues – the Arts Centre and the Twisted Hop – were damaged.
They wed seven months later in Templeton, two weeks before the Re:Start opening.
"It was certainly a lot more pressure," Lonsdale said.
"I would say I've had one to three hours' sleep a night for the entire time we've been working on the project because it was that stressful. I think it all does take a toll and there are times I know I became fairly frazzled."
Lonsdale said he never doubted the central city could be revived, even after quakes shut down the central business district three times.
Being an "eternal optimist" was his preference, he said.
"Some people say, 'you must be the only man smiling in Christchurch'.
"The last thing businesspeople want to see is someone like me looking down," he said.
"If you're leading in any respect, you've got to say, 'it's going to be good', and keep the smile on no matter what you're feeling inside.
"It's about keeping that stiff upper lip because there are no other choices."
Re:Start faced many hurdles, especially in securing funding.
Every problem seemed to have "10 other associated problems".
"There was a core group of people that worked on the project who never doubted it would get up and running on time," Lonsdale said.
"I don't think any of us stopped to think about the enormity of the project until it was over, but it's a good thing we did it.
"You've got to find opportunities to create something or do something that's going to make a difference to others.
"This project proves that by working together with a single goal you can achieve so much in a short space of time."
- © Fairfax NZ News
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