Wellington green light

WELLINGTON City Council has approved plans for a new Conference and Exhibition Centre (CEC), with construction set to begin in the new year.

The 18,000m2 CEC will feature 10,000m2 of convention space spread across its top two floors and a 1,650m2 groundfloor exhibition gallery to accommodate touring exhibitions.

“[The CEC] will enable the city to not only retain its current share of conferences but also put in bids for larger international conferences that would simply have been too big for existing venues,” said Wellington Regional Economic Development Agency’s David Perks.

“It will put us on an equal footing with Auckland and Christchurch who both have conference venues under construction, and the Australian market where all major cities have purposebuilt convention facilities.”