Commercial Bay ( mi, Onepanea) was a bay on the southern side of the Waitematā Harbour that defined the original extent of the Auckland waterfront in

Auckland Auckland (pronounced ) ( mi, Tāmaki Makaurau) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. The most populous urban area in the country and the fifth largest city in Oceania, Auckland has an urban population of about I ...

, New Zealand. It was framed by two substantial headlands, Smale's Point dividing it from

Freemans Bay Freemans Bay is the name of a former bay and now inner city suburb of Auckland, in the North Island of New Zealand. The bay has been filled in to a considerable extent, with the reclamation area now totally concealing the ancient shoreline. Hist ...

in the west and Point Britomart dividing it from

Official Bay An official is someone who holds an office (function or mandate, regardless whether it carries an actual working space with it) in an organization or government and participates in the exercise of authority, (either their own or that of their s ...

and Mechanics Bay in the east.Auckland's waterfront and its changing face
(Auckland City Library, includes various further references) The

Waihorotiu Stream Waihorotiu (from the Māori Wai Horotiu), sometimes called the Waihorotiu Stream and the 'Queen Street River', is a stream that ran down the Queen Street gully in the Auckland CBD, New Zealand, into the Waitemata Harbour. It has long since been ...

drained the valley running down to the bay. Commercial Bay was so named because from early on it had been intended as the site for the new city's business centre, in distinction from Official Bay, where government officers were first based. Queen Street was formed down the valley, alongside the Waihorotiu, and eventually the stream was covered over. The headlands on both sides of the bay were quarried away roughly within the 1860 to 1920 period, as Auckland used their stone as fill to reclaim seashore land for the growing city and built a new waterfront with various large quays. Nowadays, the former bay and its headlands are mostly covered with high-rise buildings.

History

Commercial Bay was where Logan Campbell erected his tent 1840 after hearing that Auckland was to become the capital of the colony. William Swainson described it thus in 1853:''Auckland, the Capital of New Zealand'' – William Swainson, Smith Elder, 1853 :Auckland is seen to the most advantage from the harbour. The city is built on the northern side of the isthmus which divides the Waitemata from the Manukau, and is bounded on the north by the shores of the former harbour. The site has a frontage on the water of about a mile and a half, and extends inland to the distance of about a mile. At present the greater number of the houses have been built near the water, in the bays and on the headlands with which it is indented. These bays are backed by small valleys which run inland to the distance of about half a mile, terminating in narrow gullies, and are separated from each other by spurs which run into the harbour and terminate in low headlands. Already in 1859, a new seawall had been built running from Fort Street (previously Fore Street – along the foreshore) to the newly constructed Customs Street East, and this formed the boundary for the first of infill, straightening the previously curved coastline. By this time Smale's Point was already being quarried for fill and to allow easier passage to Freemans Bay. In the 1870s and 1880s, Point Britomart followed, to provide fill for Mechanics Bay. By 1955, around of land had been filled in, and Commercial Bay had long since ceased to exist as a recognisable landscape feature.

References

{{Reflist History of Auckland Bays of the Auckland Region Auckland CBD Auckland waterfront Waitematā Harbour