Early stages of Te Aka, the redevelopment of Napier City Council's civic building and library site as a new civic precinct. The works replace and upgrade facilities shut down eight years ago because of failed earthquake risk assessment. Photo / Doug Laing
Early stages of Te Aka, the redevelopment of Napier City Council's civic building and library site as a new civic precinct. The works replace and upgrade facilities shut down eight years ago because of failed earthquake risk assessment. Photo / Doug Laing
Napier City Council has explained why it has a $110 million budget for its $70m civic centre and library rebuild precinct, and says it’s hopeful it will be finished under budget amid the cooling of the construction market.
Developed after the sudden vacation of the Civic building and public libraryfollowing failed earthquake risk assessment eight years ago, it has an overall $110m budget for a precinct expected to be open in 2027.
That budget, which includes the $70.5m construction contract announced earlier this month, covers everything from planning, design and demolition (governance and public meeting space) to all other indoors and outdoors costs, and also $17m of contingencies for interest on loan finance.
Napier City Council says that finance spreads the cost to ratepayers across generations over the next 30-35 years, limiting as far as possible the burden on current ratepayers.
Mayor Kirsten Wise said the project’s business case was written “when construction costs were at their peak and demonstrated the ‘worst case’ financial scenario”.
“The construction market has cooled since then, and we are anticipating a reduction in planned construction costs,” she said.
“There’s potential for the project to come in under budget and we’ll continually look at where savings can be achieved during the construction.”
The project is a redevelopment of the site of the now-demolished former Civic Building and the public library, partly demolished and set for refurbishment, bounded by Hastings, Station and Dalton Sts and the courthouse, including landscaped public space.
A concept design of the new Napier covic precinct, including the refurbished library tower. Photo / Napier City Council
It was sparked by the sudden 2017 shutdown after the buildings failed earthquake risk assessment, an issue numerous councils throughout the country are since facing under tougher standards after the Canterbury earthquakes.
Wise said maintaining leases on three sites occupied “around town” since the evacuation is currently costing $1.2m a year, with an increase expected before the staff move into the new offices.
She said an in-depth analysis demonstrated that over the life of the library tower, it would be about $10m cheaper to retain ownership and occupy the refurbished building than to sell it, lease it back and pay market rent.
Maintaining leases on existing buildings was not consulted on when the issues were put to the public, but the situation can be compared with events in Tauranga, where the council building was sold and replaced with a lease, at a cost of $91.9m over 15 years, with an extra $33.5m for a fit-out.
Wise said the council “looked carefully” at whether to sell the old library tower and lease it back, or refurbish it to reoccupy.
“A business case showed that us refurbishing it was the best option in the long run,” she said. “When we consulted the community on these two options in 2024, 58% of submissions favoured refurbishing the building, rather than selling it. Owning the building we occupy means less financial risk compared to potentially having changing lease terms and costs, or the lease being terminated.
“Keeping the building gives our ratepayers greater financial security,” she said.
“We’ll have repaid the loan in 30 years, rather than paying rent for many decades in buildings that might not be suitable. Construction costs will rise over the long term. If we sell our building asset now, it leaves our children with a difficult financial decision if there’s a desire for council to own its own building in the future.
“In developing an overall civic precinct, rather than just a library, we’re establishing a strong and vibrant civic hub for our community with complementary activities, such as enabling community organisations to lease ground floor space,” she said.
The council website says affordability, fairness and intergenerational equity are key elements for any project of such scale. To make the project affordable, costs are being spread across multiple decades, with “future ratepayers contributing to the facility they can use and ensuring that today’s ratepayers don’t bear the entire financial load”.
Among other councils impacted by failed seismic tests on their buildings are Wellington, where town hall strengthening as part of a much wider redevelopment is estimated at $84m; Palmerston North, where the Central Library and Te Manawa Museum and Art Gallery were identified as needing to be upgraded; and Masterton and Carterton, which have been debating for years about what to do after the sudden closure of town halls and other facilities.
This week, about 400 Christchurch City Council staff had to evacuate from their offices due to concerns about earthquake resilience.
Doug Laing is a senior reporter based in Napier with Hawke’s Bay Today, and has 52 years of journalism experience, 42 of them in Hawke’s Bay, in news gathering, including breaking news, sports, local events, issues, and personalities.
