Rest home for Lancaster Park?

Quake-damaged Lancaster Park could become a rest home for aged sports fans, a report prepared for Christchurch City Council says.

‘‘The popularity for aged rugby followers to live at the Lancaster Park Retirement Village in the Hadlee wing or the Deans wing of the complex congers up the imagination,’’ quantity surveyor Rawlinsons said in its Lancaster Park Options report.

The report looks at alternative uses for the site, if the council decides on Thursday to push ahead with demolishing the stadium, which Mayor Lianne Dalziel said last week was ‘‘uneconomic to repair’’ at an estimated cost of between $225 million and $275m.

Selling the land to a retirement home developer was one of the cheapest options, the report said. Following a $20m demolition, it would cost about $1.5m, plus or minus 20 per cent, to prepare the land to sell to this sort of buyer.

‘‘The site would need little more than levelling and leaving in an appropriate state for [an] up to three-storey residential construction. The Hadlee gates could be left at the site as an entryway . . .’’

Other options considered in the report include a sports ground and residential or industrial subdivision. There is no mention of the Lancaster Park Land Vesting Act 2008, which restricts the future use of the 4.4 hectares of Phillipstown land to sports, recreation, public assembly and ancillary purposes. The land was held in trust for those activities in commemoration of the Canterbury soldiers who died in World War I.

Council development director Peter Vause said it was not possible to change the act because the legislation set out the terms on which the land was gifted to the city.

Last week, Dalziel also seemed reluctant to see any changes made to that legislation, saying the land was a gift.

‘‘Yes, there are limitations on what you can use it for, but that’s an opportunity to rethink and reimagine its use within the context of the terms of the gift to the city.’’

The Rawlinson report said converting the land to playing fields and sports grounds would cost about $8m, plus or minus 20 per cent. It could include an allweather hockey or football pitch with appropriate lighting and fencing, a practice turf, five multi-use grass fields, 250 car parks, changing rooms, public toilets and a children’s playground.