Thanks to $5.5m from the Christchurch City Council, a pair of historic buildings that were previously going to be left unrestored will now be transformed into a health technology centre.
The 11-year restoration of the Christchurch Arts Centre will come to a close this year, but three buildings will be mothballed due to a $62 million shortfall. Two engineering buildings on Worcester Boulevard will be temporarily strengthened, but left unrestored. The former Dux de Lux building will also remain unrestored.
A new hotel and restored observatory building will open in May and the whole project will wind up by the end of the year with a total budget of $210m. The project was funded with $168m in insurance money, along with grants and fundraising.
Arts Centre director Philip Aldridge said they would now be able to shift focus back to their main function.
“This year is the culmination of an 11-year restoration project. Our focus now will be going back to being an arts centre for the community.”
The new hotel and technology centre would also provide a revenue stream for the Arts Centre, which one year struggled with an operational deficit of $1.5m.
“We are in a very difficult position financially. We have had this massive restoration project but behind it is a small arts organisation trying to run these very expensive buildings. The financial position of the Arts Centre has always been precarious.”
Aldridge said that by the end of the year people would be able to walk across the Arts Centre site from east to west for the first time since the 2011 Canterbury earthquakes as building fences would come down.
