It was then unused, but Simon Tremain, managing partner of Tremain Real Estate and Tremain Commercial (Colliers Hawke's Bay) said that after five or so years of the Community Hub, the site is being prepared for potential commercial development.
Emma Horgan-Heke, chief executive officer for the Sustaining Hawke's Bay Trust charity that run the Environment Centre, said they have finally found a viable site to move to but need immediate funding to do so.
The centre is reluctant to identify the potential new site, until it has funding secured.
"We've applied for lots of grants but we don't hear for two or three months on most of them," she said.
"We're trying to explore every possible avenue to get things going."
Environment Centre are trying to raise $250,000 to operate over the next year - $100,000 for the building lease and outgoings and $150,000 for three new employees to provide recycling and climate change action education and behavioral change advice.
Horgan-Heke said the move has provided the Centre with an opportunity to expand its offering.
"Because we've got so busy so quickly, because people are so interested in taking climate action, I guess we've been taken a little bit off guard about how much we need to up-resource the centre," she said.
The trust is currently heavily focused on zero waste and recycling streams, but wants to expand to broader climate action across areas like food resilience, biodiversity, water health, energy and transport.
"This is the first chance that we've had for something that could actually work with our new strategic plan," Horgan-Heke said.
She said that depending on how the fundraising goes over the next month, their Board may have to consider the future of Environment Centre Hawke's Bay.
"If we don't have enough money to do what we need to do, then we'll have to make some hard decisions and we're just not sure what they'll look like yet," she said.
But Horgan-Heke and her team are optimistic.
"Just because of the number of people that come through the door and use our services, we hope that the community steps up and supports us. Time will tell I guess."
This year Environment Centre Hawke's Bay has diverted more than 80,000 kilograms of electronic waste and over 100,000kg of plastics, batteries, aluminum, tetra pak, coffee pods, candle wax, toothpaste tubes and printer cartridges from landfill.
Nourished for Nil founder Christina McBeth said their move to a building that has twice the capacity of the Tremains Community Hub space is all set to go.
She said their services will all remain the same and the food rescue organisation will simply be able to take in and distribute a lot more food in a less crowded space, with considerably more on-site storage.
