Recently Sport Canterbury received an update about the central city rebuild and Metro Sports Facility from John O’Hagan, Development Director – Anchor Projects. It is reprinted below.

“You might have noticed Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority (CERA) Chief Executive John Ombler has been talking with media about recovery progress. This included an update on all the work our organisation does across greater Christchurch as well as a timeline for central city anchor projects.

The timeline included a 2020 completion date for Metro Sports Facility.

This update provides you with a ‘big picture’ overview for the recovery as a whole and where the central city anchor projects fit, including the Metro Sports Facility.

Next year the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Act 2011 expires. The overarching plan for the recovery is on track—the next logical phase is transition work. As a result CERA is taking stock of how management of the recovery should continue.

The Government’s commitment to Christchurch is unwavering. Metro Sports Facility is an important and integral part of this commitment.

View the Anchor Projects timeline »

The big picture for the central city

Christchurch Central Development Unit (CCDU) project teams are at different stages of work programmes. There may be a perception by some that because work on physical structures has not begun there is a lack of action or progress. This is not the case.

Larger projects are still working through business case modelling and contract negotiations. It is important that all stages of anchor projects are understood and transparent. For this reason an internal review has been completed of all components of the work programme covering CERA led projects, as well as noting those led by the Ministry of Justice and Christchurch City Council. That means revised dates for some projects.

There are no real surprises with the new dates when viewed in the context of the announcement in July 2012 of the Christchurch Central Recovery Plan. This included a Blueprint, which unveiled a frame for the new central city layout, defining the locations of anchor projects. It is also true to say that, like other anchor project teams, the Metro Sports Facility team has been working through many unknowns in terms of how such a large scale project develops.

Metro Sports Facility

In terms of where Metro Sports Facility fits in, there is no doubt that this is one of the most complex anchor projects and will deliver a large multi-purpose structure. The project is challenging and hugely exciting.

I’d like to reiterate what I shared with you in the April update. Our project team is busy and focused on the tasks needed to achieve the high quality construction of a very large and technically complex project. We are doing this against a backdrop of unprecedented levels of construction activity in the greater Christchurch rebuild environment. There is an enormous amount and range of work going on to find the balance for meeting a range of community needs appropriately, sustainably and at the right cost.

It is important to note that enabling works are already well underway and will be on going for some time. At the moment ground testing and remediation is a key focus, and we have started planning for the substantial infrastructure (power, water, waste water, and telecommunications), that will be needed to support this major sports facility well into the future.

You might also be interested to know that once construction of the structure begins, it is likely to be built in stages where more easily delivered components are constructed first. It is quite normal for construction of a structure of this size to take approximately three years.

The projected timeline of completion in 2020 has a great deal of planning and commitment behind it, however if the project team can deliver earlier, it will.”

Yours sincerely,
John O’Hagan
Development Director – Anchor Projects