$4.5m upgrade may be brought forward

The War Memorial Conference Centre is to undergo earthquake strengthening.

Napier City Council is planning to bring forward part of a planned $4.5 million refurbishment of the War Memorial Conference Centre to fast-track required earthquake strengthening of the Marine Parade building.

While an earthquake assessment of the building is still being completed, the council says early indications are that work will need to be done to bring it up to current national building standards.

Chief executive Wayne Jack said while it was not expected the assessment would require the centre to close before the work began with a planned upgrade in the pipeline, it made sense to do both at the same time to lessen the impact.

Wayne Jack, Napier City Council chief executive.

In its long-term plan, the council is proposing spending $4.5 million over the next 10 years on an upgrade of the conference centre, which has not had a significant upgrade for two decades.

"During our recent long-term plan the upgrade and extension of the War Memorial was one of the things we consulted on. Feedback was 92 per cent in favour of the upgrade," Mr Jack said.

"While we initially had planned to wait for a few years - the indication from the earthquake assessors that work will be needed means it's sensible to rethink our timelines for the refurbishment."

At a council meeting yesterday, councillors voted in favour of changing the timing of the upgrade, which had been scheduled from 2023 to 2025 in the long-term plan. The project will now be divided into two stages with the first stage to begin in the 2015/16 financial year, which begins on July 1.

Mr Jack told the meeting bringing the work forward would not have an impact on rates as the work was likely to be debt-funded.

In a statement he said while he hoped to have more detailed information in the next few weeks, the initial plan was to start work later this year.

"There are many things to work through but there will be no redundancies and our staff will continue in their roles."

People with existing bookings at the centre would be contacted over the next week.

"Unfortunately because we don't have all the details we need, we can't provide any dates around when exactly the work will be done or how long it will take," Mr Jack said.

"However, staff will be tasked with looking at all other venue options in Napier and will be providing our clients with those and will be working with them to ensure all their needs are met."