The Dunedin City Council has confirmed efforts to help its tenant at the site find a new home have not yielded the desired result and the Community Care Trust may now stay until its lease expires at the end of January 2025.
Demolition and construction could proceed at the site, on the corner of King Edward St and Macandrew Rd, after that.
The trust supports adults and young people with intellectual disabilities and people with autistic spectrum disorders in Otago and Southland.
The council hopes the trust will be able to stay in Dunedin.
The council had previously intended to press ahead with demolition last winter.
Today, Ms Graham reassured residents the council remained committed to establishing a library and community complex in South Dunedin.
Funding continued to be set aside for that purpose.
More than $10 million of work planned to construct the complex could be deferred until after the 2023-24 financial year.
“While we wait for the tenancy to finish, we can still do a lot of the planning and design work to make sure we’re ready to start demolition in February 2025,” Ms Graham said.
The council bought the site in March 2019, carried out painting there and then discovered starting afresh was much more cost-effective than using the existing buildings.
The single-storey complex is to include a library, customer service space, meeting rooms, an IT learning centre and recording studio.
Major tenants Para Rubber and Veggie Boys left in 2020.
The former Veggie Boys part of the building will be made available for community use and the extended space is being managed by the South Dunedin Community Network.
“The South Dunedin Community Network has kindly agreed to co-ordinate use of the space and has lots of good ideas about how to use it,” Ms Graham said.
