Convention Centre lumbers on; Adelaide quick out of the blocks

SkyCity Entertainment Group expects to finish $1.05 billion worth of projects next year, but Adelaide has been picked to beat Auckland as construction in the two cities runs neckand-neck.

“If I was a betting man — and I’m not — I’d probably put my money on Adelaide,” chief executive Graeme Stephens told the AGM in Auckland yesterday.

The Adelaide project only started last year, while the NZ International Convention Centre (NZICC) was signed in 2015 and has suffered continued delays.

SkyCity has lost nearly 8000 delegates booked for next February to April.

Stephens now says conferences might not be held there until 2021.

Work has sped ahead on the new $A330m ($353m) hotel on Adelaide’s river while the $703m NZICC on an entire Auckland city block has been so pitifully slow Stephens said liquidated damages of $40m had already been collected.

Richard Didsbury, a SkyCity director, said yesterday of the NZICC: “The completion date has continued to drift both for Fletchers and ourselves. There are hundreds of tradespeople on the site and progress is being achieved every day, albeit slowly.

“Hopefully, the NZICC will be finished towards the end of next year and the hotel earlier,” Didsbury said of the neighbouring Horizon Hotel.

Even installation of Goliath, the

If I was a betting man — and I’m not — I’d probably put my money on Adelaide. Graeme Stephens

giant four-lane glass/steel airbridge to span Hobson St, is delayed, Stephens revealed. Instead of this month, it won’t now be hoisted into place until a public holiday in 2020, possibly February.

But some good news: the NZICC will host Apec in 2021, meaning Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin could come if they are still in power.

Shareholders also heard about a second new conference: the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions in August 2022, requiring 15,000 room nights and bringing in up to $8m.

Shareholder Coralie van Camp asked what SkyCity was doing to appease union protesters gathered on Hobson St outside the AGM.

SkyCity chairman Rob Campbell said the wage demands could amount to $40m, hitting SkyCity’s bottom line, and “for most of the staff, this is not an issue. That’s shown by low numbers of demonstrators. We wish it wasn’t happening.”

Minimum wages would rise to $20 an hour next year.

SkyCity’s plans for its existing Albert St/Federal St convention centre are also advancing: CFO Rob Hamilton said after the AGM that by next month, the All Blacks’ experience lease of level four would have begun and by next April, design and effects company Weta Workshop would have leased level five.

The SkyCity Theatre, where the AGM was held will also change. “We are looking at options for better use of this place,” Campbell said.