Event centre roof on track

The construction of the Network Waitaki Event Centre has reached a major milestone.

The roof has started to go on and will be completed by the end of the week.

It now means contractors are not burdened by weather to continue progressing the interior.

Waitaki Event Centre Trust chairman Kevin Malcolm said it was great to see the build coming together.

"We’re exceptionally happy with the way the whole project is working.

"The more we build of it, the more we realise that we should’ve done this 10 years ago."

Apollo Projects site manager Simon North said during some weeks, work was being done all seven days.

"The structural steel guys, they’ve been working 11 days on, three days off. They come down from Christchurch so they stay the weekend."

Mr Malcolm said the trust were "well on the way" to completing the funding of stage one, the event centre itself, which will cost just under $33million.

They also were beginning to price stage two which is the grandstand and office spaces.

They were on track to complete the event centre by February and hoped the grandstand would take about six months so North Otago could return to their home ground for the 2026 Heartland Championship, he said.

"It’s all quite achievable, really."

The $33m event centre will house six timber-sprung courts, a multi-purpose room for cricket that could also accommodate other codes such as archery, as well as conference rooms and office space.