Changes to new Stoke centre
Some minor adjustments to the $7m Greenmeadows recreation centre, including reducing the size of the cafe, will not have a large affect on its budget.
The community services committee were told of some adjustments to the new recreational centre in Stoke last week, which last month was granted a further half a million dollars in funding after going over-budget.
Gaile Noonan, who chaired the committee, said the update was to ‘‘avoid any surprises later’’.
Group manager of infrastructure Alec Louverdis said the architect, Marc Barron, ‘‘feels that the work [on the recreation centre] is of a high standard and that the overall effect is very good’’.
However, there were a few things which had been changed, or which were to be changed, which the committee needed to be alerted to.
The initial design planned for solar panels to be installed on the roof, which would have hidden air conditioning units. Solar panels were found not to be cost-effective, and so the architect elected to build a small fence-like structure at the top of the building to hide the air conditioners.
Louverdis said the work was ‘‘not major ... and will certainly blend in with the building’’.
The landscaping plan for the front of the building has also been changed, after trees had to be removed when it was found their roots were interfering with a fibre-optic cable running underneath them.
Perhaps the most significant change is the creation of a new room in the building.
The operator who is leasing the cafe space ‘‘raised some concerns at the size of the space ... so it will be about 80 square metres instead of the full 100,’’ Louverdis said.
The spare 20 square metres of space has been turned into another room, which the managers of the centre said would easily be rented out for small functions or community groups.
Councillor Mel Courtney expressed some concern that the smaller cafe space would affect the amount of rent to be paid for the space, however the rent approved by the council, which is private for commercial sensitivity, already took the reduction in size into account.
Mayor Rachel Reese said since this change was already taken into account there was no reduction in rent, but there was ‘‘the opportunity to gather extra revenue from the other room’’.
Louverdis assured the committee there was not a significant ‘‘dollar impact’’ from any of the changes, and that should the cafe prove to be more successful than anticipated, the wall constructed to reduce its size was relatively simple to remove.