Questions remain, but the future is brighter

Glacial as progress has been, the festive season has been draped with a garland of relief that Christchurch will finally get the stadium it deserves. All going to plan, physical work on the site should begin within six months, with the multi-use arena opening for business in the spring of 2024.

But even if that timeline stays true, the opening of the city’s premier sports and entertainment venue will come more than 13 years after that fateful February day in 2011, which knocked Christchurch off the map as a Rugby World Cup host city and so much more.

Ever since, the Garden City’s stature as a tierone destination for major sporting and entertainment occasions has been knee-capped. The ensuing reputational damage to our city’s lustre has been immense.

As ChristchurchNZ chief executive Joanna Norris pointedly remarked ‘‘other cities leveraged our weakness when we were on our knees’’.

Truth be told, the longevity of our weakness was self-inflicted. Denying Christchurch a half-decent venue for 13 long years can be sheeted home to a sustained failure of city leadership, drive and resolve.

The post-quake central city blueprint initially tagged this anchor project with a completion date of 2017. As much as that was probably overambitious, it still underscores how much this impasse has been allowed to drift.

During Lianne Dalziel’s first term as mayor, her council relegated the stadium project to the farthest reaches of the Long-Term Plan, kicking it into touch for the best part of a decade.

A belated change of heart saw the council adjust course, shuffling forward its capital funding commitments by a couple of years, in the 2018 Long-Term Plan.

Now that the comprehensive investment case has been approved by the council and put before Cabinet, the long-awaited project can finally begin in earnest, starting with the detailed design and enabling works next year.

Building the 25,000 seater covered arena will cost $473 million, with $253m of ratepayers money set aside in the Long-Term Plan, alongside the Crown contribution of $220m.

There are still many open questions as to secondary revenue sources and private sector funding, whether it be operating an on-site sports museum or offering daily stadium tours, and also the possibility of funding contributions from neighbouring councils.

You may recall during the recent council election campaign, People’s Choice pledged to pursue a regional funding model, whereby ratepayers from Waimakariri, Hurunui and Selwyn would be expected to fund 25 per cent of the arena’s capital outlay, leaving Christchurch ratepayers to foot 75 per cent of the $253m bill. Despite that election rhetoric, there’s no prospect of that being pursued.

The fact that all taxpayers are chipping in $220m from the Capital Acceleration Fund blunts the case for the city’s neighbouring authorities to fork out $63m.

But what about the projected annual $4.2m operational costs? Should greater Christchurch share that bill, given residents of Rolleston and Rangiora will reap the social benefits as much as city-dwellers? It will be a world-class entertainment cauldron for all of Canterbury.

Selwyn Mayor Sam Broughton says there’s no need, given the Government’s hefty contribution, although he does think the project should have been structured as a regional venture from the outset.

Hurunui Mayor Marie Black tells me she welcomes the regional benefits the arena will bring, but is ‘‘very cautious’’ about saddling her ratepayers with any ongoing operational costs. Waimakariri Mayor Dan Gordon concurs.

If our neighbouring councils were levied 25 per cent of the operational costs, it would shave $1 million off the city ratepayers’ annual burden.

Then again, the vast majority of council community facilities do not operate on a revenueneutral basis. Vbase currently receives an annual $2.5m operational grant to cover venues like the Town Hall and its vastly underestimated costs. When the Metro Sports Centre opens, the council’s annual operational loss on pools will swell to $11m. QEII alone runs at an annual loss of $3m.

Ideally, our exciting new arena should dare to be different and strive to clean its own face. But they are matters for another day.

For now, Christchurch’s outlook is all the brighter with the investment case approved. The arena can’t come soon enough.

Ideally, our exciting new arena should dare to be different and strive to clean its own face.