Te Aro

Te Aro has become one of Wellington’s most fashionable areas, with a number of top quality apartment complexes and several more under construction – a long way from the days when it housed the city’s slums (the notorious Chinese district ‘Tong Yan Gaai’ in Haining Street was known for its opium and gaming dens until WWII; the last opium raid was carried out in 1961).

It’s one of the city’s few flat areas (partly due to extensive harbour reclamation) and has Wellington’s largest concentration of restaurants, cafés, cinemas, theatres, and bars… spiced with dashes of bohemia, particularly around Cuba Mall.

The area runs from the southern end of the Central Business District, from Civic Square along to Cambridge and Kent Terraces at the base of Mt Victoria.  It has a number of cinema complexes (including the beautifully restored Embassy Theatre), several professional theatres (Bats, Circa and Downstage), the Opera House and Wellington’s world standard St James Theatre.  The Museum of New Zealand (Te Papa) lies at the waterfront and within a few minutes walk are the (imported) golden sands of Oriental Bay and Waitangi Park. 

The central city has something for everyone: contemporary apartments of all sizes and types, family houses and even a few colonial cottages.  Areas once regarded as ‘light industrial’ are now peppered with chic apartments and simpler student accommodation; with new rooftop apartments on older buildings and a number of modern purpose-built blocks. It’s no surprise the area’s population roughly quadrupled between 1991 and 2001, with some quirky statistics: Census figures show 62% of residents walk or jog to work; and curiously, more residents spoke French (4.6%) than Maori (4.1%); with 3.1% speaking German.