Built on 12ha of rolling hills off Blackhead Rd, the cemetery will have room for about 6000 burial plots, and up to double the number of interments if fully utilised, and is expected to serve the city's needs for the next 70 years.
Workers were last week adding finishing touches, including building a memorial plaza and flagpole for the Returned and Services' Association (RSA), while others were doing landscaping work.
The Dunedin Cemetery would open this month, with a November 17 date set for a small ceremony, Dunedin City Council botanic garden and cemeteries team leader Alan Matchett said.
Exactly what the ceremony would entail was still being considered, he said, but local iwi would be involved, and there would be some sort of blessing.
The cemetery has been in the planning stage since the 1990s.
The council bought the property in 1996, and went through resource consent processes in the same decade, before work building roads began in 2009.
Many Dunedin cemeteries are coming to the end of their lives, with facilities including the Andersons Bay and Green Island cemeteries having no new plots left. There is only room for "second interments".
Mr Matchett said that meant new burial plots would be at the new cemetery.
Plots cannot be pre-booked at the cemetery.
Burial berms, concrete berms on which headstones could be attached after burials, and others for plaques after cremations, have been installed at the site.
Mr Matchett said details of the cost of the facility were not readily available, as spending had occurred over more than a decade.
