Five years after the first game was played at Bay Oval, work has finally started on the $2.6 million pavilion, with the project's backers hoping to catch the eye of Cricket World Cup 2015 organisers, as sports editor Kelly Exelby writes
The days of some of New Zealand's leading cricketers camping out in tents and portacoms at Mt Maunganui are numbered, with a start being made in the past week on the Bay Oval's ambitious $2.6 million pavilion project.
Although initial work has involved wholly unglamorous earthworks 100m north of the ground itself, the long-awaited pavilion, which has undergone more changes than Joan Rivers' face as Auckland architects Jasmax re-tweaked the size and height, should start taking shape over the next few months.
Even having to foot the bill for an unexpected $160,000 worth of sewerage and electrical services has failed to slow momentum, with Bay Cricket Trust general manager Kelvin Jones like a kid at Christmas with something tangible happening on the outskirts of the boutique ground.
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Architects Jasmax's impression of the new Bay Oval pavilion at Mt Maunganui
The trust has $2.4 million in grants and donations and had initially planned for the pavilion complex, which sits at the northern end of the ground, to be fully functional by now.
But the project has been stymied by issues over council consent and the global financial crisis, although Jones is confident most of the hurdles have been cleared in time for stage one, which will house player and officials' changing rooms, a player viewing area, administrative offices, public toilets and ground-user storage, to begin with.
Drainage services have started, with the Oval also needing its own transformer to get additional power across to the ground, which takes up a quarter of Blake Park. A sewerage pump station is also being built, with the Oval sitting lower than the rest of the park, adding an unexpected $160,000 to the project costs.
"It seems slightly overkill having our own pump station and transformer, services we hadn't anticipated, but we quickly discovered that being in the middle of the park, with all the services under capacity and so far away, adds more cost, although we have been able to do things to a size that now gives us excess capacity if we need more public toilets or power."
Once sign-off is given by the Tauranga City Council and a variation to the building consent sought, a building contract is sitting waiting to be signed and the whole project will kick into gear.
Jones said the trustees had been as frustrated as everyone else as summer after summer rolled by with seemingly nothing happening.
"There's been a perceived lack of progress; people have come to the ground and said nothing's happening.
"It's been that way for three or four years. But it has to happen this year and if it doesn't get off the ground within a matter of months, then everything will start to unravel - we'll lose our TECT [Tauranga Energy Consumer Trust] funding [of $1 million] and gaming trust funding starts to go as well.
"We're in a key do-or-die period and the clock, which has always been ticking, has started to tick a little louder."
The cost of the pavilion project has been cut by more than $1 million to $2.65 million, which includes a council contribution of $540,000. The trust has raised $2.4 million, with an underwrite which it would prefer not to use in place to cover the full cost. A memorandum of understanding with the council had taken three years to achieve.
The pavilion project will be broken into three stages, with stages 1a (storage and public toilets) and 1b (seven changing rooms, player viewing area and lounge and offices) imminent and covering floor space of 1200sq m. Stage 2 is a function and events block to be tacked on the end of the main pavilion.
Whangarei's Cobham Oval has its Lords-inspired building but Jasmax's design for Bay Oval has a modern twist spread over one level that should sit unobtrusively on top of the embankment.
As well as looming deadlines for funding to be used, the Oval will be vying to host games during the World Cup in 2015 and needs something tangible by way of infrastructure to show it could fulfil requirements.
"We've been in a lot of discussions lately and are pushing hard for the World Cup, talking with the right people at NZ Cricket," Jones said. "The issue we face is they start to do the [World Cup] draw 15 months out, which gives us probably until the end of next summer to get to almost international warrant of fitness level.
"That's 11-12 months, that's what we're pushing hard for and it's achievable. Once we've finished stage one of the pavilion we need to get a few other bits of infrastructure in like scoreboards, groundsman and media facilities and sightscreens and then we can make a good case based on crowds, weather, drainage and our wicket."
The large lounge area underpinning stage two would be needed for the World Cup but wouldn't necessarily have to be in place to prove international cricket could be played in the region.
Progress at the ground could be the catalyst for further funding by way of commercial backing or sponsorship, which Jones admits has been hard to come by.
"We've been almost wholly dependent on traditional trusts such as TECT and gaming trusts, and the reality is that so far they're the ones who've funded 90 per cent of the project. It's been a tough economic climate and we've found pure commercial funding ... hard ...
"But by showing the powers that be in the cricket community, as well as other potential funders, we're serious could certainly open up opportunities, and we'll also have something to offer potential naming rights sponsors soon in terms of a ground and a building people will notice.
"We'd be happy to field offers."