Tiwana Tibble - Lost opportunity. Photo / APN
As the Ministry of Economic Development considers the proposals, some bidders are not happy with the process.
Will a mostly private company-fronted bid win the bidding war for the National Convention and Exhibition Centre, or, will the Government favour one of the competing proposals involving public-private partnerships which include either the NZ Super Fund or Maori?
That question is bubbling away as the Ministry of Economic Development
(MED) weighs the five bids.
Proponents of the SkyCity bid say a convention centre adjacent to the Hobson St casino would form a "natural bookend" for the Auckland CBD and reduce pressure on the Government's purse.
Infratil - which is fronting a bid to place a convention centre on Wynyard Quarter - is expected to make room for the Public Infrastructure Partnership (PIP) Fund to play a role if its bid succeeds.
The PIP Fund is managed by Infratil's major shareholder, Morrison and Co, and its investors include the NZ Superannuation Fund and the NZ Social Infrastructure Fund.
But Tiwana Tibble, chief executive of the Ngati Whatua o Orakei Maori Trust Board, has taken issue with the process. He accuses vested interests of lobbying MED officials, Cabinet ministers and MPs and seeding wrong ideas which he claims would result in "another lost opportunity for Auckland".
His board wants to develop the venue on railway land at Quay Park next to the Vector Arena.
He maintains lobbyists are spreading what he calls a "10-minute walk myth" around Wellington; in essence that the Government-funded convention centre must be within a 10-minute walk of major hotels.
He says: "Once a convention centre is being built, hotel organisations make plans to take advantage of its location and build around it. That is just common sense.
"Another reason why the 10-minute walk idea fails is that women in heels are not likely to leave the convention centre at the end of the day and walk in streets they don't know to a hotel or restaurant. Most people will be carrying bags or exhibition materials and won't be considering a walk."
Rather than a 10-minute walk, Tibble says, those assessing the merits of the potential sites should be focusing on the availability of convenient "less than 10-minute" transport, whether that be a taxi, a tram, a bus, a ferry or a train - and yes, a walk: if it is an attractive one.
Local economy booster
The national convention centre must be able to:
* Host conferences averaging 3500 delegates and attract 22,000 additional international visitors each year.
* Bring an extra $85.4 million in tourism-related expenditure.
* Improve shoulder and off-peak tourism, foster commercial links between international and NZ businesses, and support innovation and knowledge transfer between international delegates and New Zealanders.
