Uni quake rebuild stutters along
A $216 million science centre at Canterbury University will open next month – nine months behind schedule.
Recently-released reports to the former Minister for Tertiary Education Paul Goldsmith said the Rutherford Regional Science and Innovation Centre, among other campus projects, posed a risk to the university’s finances as it battled a $10m deficit and unsustainably low enrolments.
Canterbury vice-chancellor Rod Carr said unexpected asbestos levels increased the cost of demolishing the von Haast building, which the new construction has replaced, by up to $500,000, while ‘‘commissioning issues’’ with contractor Fletcher Construction delayed the build by three months.
He said the centre’s opening coincided with a surprising 10 per cent growth, thus far, in enrolments in the university’s science programmes for next year. Enrolments previously were declining.
Originally slated for completion in February, the Rutherford centre’s due date was pushed out to June, then to the end of October by Fletcher. ‘‘As projects go in the city, while it’s not exactly on time or exactly on budget, it’s pretty close,’’ Carr said.
He said the university was still engaged in some ‘‘argy-bargy’’ with Fletcher over ‘‘detail that should have been [included] in the original sum’’ for the centre’s construction. Fletcher was unable to explain the reasons for the delay on Tuesday. The opening of the university’s new education and health building, Rehua, has also been delayed multiple times and plans to move in over summer are now on hold until at least April.
‘‘We’ve made the decision not to take that risk,’’ Carr said, noting completion dates for parts of the building, such as its terracotta facade, were ‘‘not easily forecasted’’.
He said the university was ‘‘more than 75 per cent through’’ its post-earthquake works programme and rejected the Tertiary Education Commission’s concerns it might not have enough money to repair larger buildings and maintain its usual investments.
A commission report to Goldsmith in June said the university had to ‘‘recover its market share locally as well as continue to increase its share from outside Canterbury to maintain its momentum’’.
It would lose $7m in commission funding if it could not lift enrolments 2.6 per cent – about 3500 students – by 2018.
Carr, who will vacate the vicechancellor’s role in 2019, believed the university had ‘‘just enough money’’ to pull off major projects, provided it continued attracting students from the North Island.
‘‘We believe there’s always a risk and until major programmes are completed you don’t know what the final cost is, but it’s a risk, it’s not certain.’’