Reserve Bank building in Wellington closes temporarily due to asbestos; bank’s operations unaffected as staff work from home

The asbestos-plagued Reserve Bank building on The Terrace in Wellington is closed. Photo / Mark Mitchell

The Reserve Bank has confirmed its central Wellington building has been closed since last Friday, and might not reopen for nearly a fortnight, due to asbestos.

The building, at 2 The Terrace, is known to urgently need refurbishing due to “encapsulated asbestos”.

However, a routine building-wide survey done last Thursday found “isolated disturbance of asbestos”.

The Reserve Bank said the area was contained. But coincidentally, a magnitude 4.9 earthquake closed the building that evening, as air quality monitoring had to be done.

It said it could take until November 24 for remediation work related to the asbestos to be done.

While Wellington staff are working from home, the central bank didn’t expect the disruption to impact its services.

Planning has been under way to refurbish the building, which is in the vicinity of underground maximum-security cash vaults that are in need of a major revamp.

The Reserve Bank has, for more than a decade, warned successive finance ministers of the need to upgrade the vaults and cash processing system, deemed to be infrastructure of “national significance”. The asbestos is an added complication to the project.

This isn’t the first time asbestos has caused a temporary closure of the building.

Construction to refurbish the vaults is expected to begin next year, while construction to fix the building is due to start in 2028.

The cost associated with the work hasn’t been disclosed.

It isn’t included in the five-yearly funding agreement the Reserve Bank has with the Government which says the costs will be covered separately.

The Reserve Bank made headlines this week, when the Herald revealed the astronomic amount it’s paying to lease offices in Britomart, Auckland.

Finance Minister Nicola Willis gave it a hurry-up to sublet space in the building, made vacant due to the bank cutting staff in line with it receiving less funding than it initially bid for.

Jenée Tibshraeny is the Herald’s Wellington Business Editor, based in the Parliamentary press gallery. She specialises in government and Reserve Bank policymaking, economics and banking.

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