Costs are already rising for the multi-sport pavilion at Metro Park East, although a final design is not yet on the drawing board.
The reason for the increased cost is that the proposed facility is now almost 40 percent larger than the original plan put forward last year.
When the Hibiscus & Bays Local Board allocated $108,322 to the Metro Park Community Sport Charitable Trust towards the design-build plans in 2018, the proposal was for a small pavilion with a footprint of 286sqm and an estimated cost of $900,000-$1.4 million.
The Trust, which represents users of the sports grounds in Millwater, wants the building so that social gatherings such as prizegivings can be held – it would also provide toilets, changing rooms and storage facilities for the members of local athletics, football, rugby and cricket clubs who use the grounds.
Recently two more clubs – Silverdale Rugby Club and the Rodney District Sports and Community Association – have joined the Trust and it was decided that this changed the need for facilities, with a resulting increase in the pavilion’s footprint to 400sqm. This is largely to accommodate additional changing and ablution blocks and more storage.
The cost of the build is now estimated at $1.4m-$1.6m.
Approval of the latest draft design was given by the local board at its meeting last month.
Funding for the build is yet to be confirmed and will have to be secured from various sources.
As a comparison, the Sharks Sports Trust multi-sport complex in Victor Eaves Reserve, Orewa, which opened in 2008, was built with around $700,000 of ratepayers’ money plus around $1m raised by Sharks through grants. Hibiscus Coast Cricket Club, one of the largest groups that were using the Victor Eaves sports grounds at the time, put in $10,000.
Silverdale Rugby increases ties to Metro Park
In 2015, Silverdale Rugby Club members decided not to shift the club’s current base in Silverdale to Metro Park East. As the largest club interested in using Metro Park, Silverdale Rugby’s contribution was seen at the time as critical to getting a sports pavilion off the ground. Since that decision was made, the rugby club has continued to use the fields at Metro Park as overflow, but its level of support for the facility ramped up a bit this year. At a meeting on January 29, the rugby club’s board approved the appointment of Steve Faulkner as a trustee on the Metro Park Community Sport Charitable Trust and this was approved by the Trust at its February meeting. Rugby club chair Chris Carter says that the club is keen to be involved in the development of the pavilion at Metro Park “so as to provide facilities (toilets, storage and changing rooms) to enable greater field usage options at Millwater for the club”.
