Deputy Mayor of Napier Annette Brosnan with MCL directors Alastair Cairney (left) and Philip Mitchell (right), partners in the MCL Stead venture with the $70.5 million contract for the major construction phase of the $110.5 million Napier Civic Precinct project. Photo / Doug Laing
Deputy Mayor of Napier Annette Brosnan with MCL directors Alastair Cairney (left) and Philip Mitchell (right), partners in the MCL Stead venture with the $70.5 million contract for the major construction phase of the $110.5 million Napier Civic Precinct project. Photo / Doug Laing
It looks like a bomb site, as it has for quite some time.
A gutted multi-storey building, high-rise in the Napier context, looking more like the last semblance of the past than any hint of any new future, with a cohabiting red frame of a crane about to beerected, looking like the collapsed skeleton of a mechanical dinosaur.
But Napier city councillor Annette Brosnan is confident, as she strolls about the tract of land bounded by Hastings, Dalton and Station streets, that Napier is getting “good value for money” in building a new civic precinct.
Had it not been for the sudden vacating of the 50-year-old former Civic Building because of failed earthquake risk assessment in 2017, Brosnan said it could have seen 6-7 projects.
It could have taken many more years, likely at much greater cost, said the deputy mayor, whose 12 years on the council have been dominated by the eight years of turmoil since the council and staff turned out the lights for the last time.
Chucking in two of the region’s worst storms – the Napier floods of November 2020 and Cyclone Gabrielle in February 2023 (with the Covid global pandemic lockdowns inbetween and now ongoing uncertainties of the political climate) it was in question even until “a few months ago” as to quite when construction would begin, and whether it would still be what has been planned, she said, standing in the required health and safety raiment of steel-capped boots, hard hat and fluoro jacket.
Deputy Mayor Annette Brosnan and city council strategic programmes manager Darran Gillies in the former library space being redeveloped in the Napier Civic Precinct project. Photo / Doug Laing.
There’s a level of emotion as she recalls: “I remember the tears when everyone was leaving the building. There was a lot of uncertainty.”
Council staff have since been spread across several mainly-leased sites, and there had been nowhere “for people to come and see us”, she said.
It was also devastating for the food and beverage business in the area, but she’s expecting now a revival with work crews numbering up to 300 people over the next two years, followed by the return of the council’s own staff, after a decade away.
It is, however, a complex project, as council strategic manager Darran Gillies, and leaders from MCL Stead, the local partnership with the $70.5 million contract for the construction.
It’s Stead’s crane being set up this week, and expected to be on site for over 12 months, with construction progress likely to be watched by the public daily as the site is transformed from a demolition side retaining just the shell of the library tower, which still carries such signage as “Non-fiction Section,” “Large Print” and “Audio Books” on its pillars, and a sort of ghostly feel where the IRD used to hold fort in leased space upstairs.
Emerging will be a cluster of three buildings, and landscaped outdoor space through to the Hawke’s Bay Regional Council building on the opposite side of Dalton St, and walkthough towards Willis House, fronting Dickens St and linking to the CBD beyond.
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.
