The Changing Face Of Suva
p. 29 · Read in the full issue
SUVA’S mini-opera house is Suva City Council’s most ambitious project. It is seen in the foreground in this shot of the Suva waterfront.
The building is not really an opera house but the second stage of the Suva City Centre and will eventu ally face a boulevarde running right along the foreshore. Formation of the road is almost complete up to this point but more reclamation will be necessary before the road can proceed beyond the new town hall—the city baths is in the way, among other things.
This second section of the City Centre project (the first, mainly executive offices, was completed several years ago) will cost approxi mately £400,000 and is expected to be opened in August. It consists of meeting rooms, foyer and a small hall to seat 500 on the ground floor; a reception hall, cloak room, etc., on the first floor. From there, there will be an entrance to an air-con ditioned, licensed restaurant, which will be leased to private operators, and staircases to the main hall, seat-
ing 750, which takes up the whole of the top floor. The large hall will have a full-scale stage and be able to accommodate a small opera com pany. When finished, the building will be equipped with bars and a sitting-out terrace as well as an air conditioned restaurant.
Further along the Suva waterfront, and not in the picture, is the Travel lodge, Fiji’s newest and probably biggest, hotel now rapidly taking shape on a large block next to the Grand Pacific Hotel. It will have 137 double rooms in two wings, each air-conditioned and with private bath, balcony, view and refrigerator.
The centre block has dining-room, lounge, cocktail-bar, coffee shop, re ception, shop and hairdressing salon.
In the courtyard, facing the harbour, is the biggest swimming pool in Fiji.
The hotel building and furnishing should be complete by September; the owners expect to open in October after a dry-run of a few weeks to get staff trained and to iron out some of the usual troubles. The hotel will cost £1 million and is owned jointly by Trust Houses of the United Kingdom, Travelodge Australia and the Burns Philp group (see panel).
The picture (left) shows the newly completed Honson’s Building on the extreme left; the new post-office build ing next to it; and, extreme right, the CML Building. Further along, facing Victoria Parade, the six-storey Development Bank building, costing £600,000, is taking shape. Pictures by A. G. Shearer and Stinson’s.