ACSF Trust chairman Murray Bennett told the Otago Daily Times yesterday building consent would be lodged by the end of the month for the building, which has been about 10 years in the planning.
Simultaneously, the trust would put the project out for tender.
Mr Bennett said he was "absolutely" confident consent would be granted and he expected the project would be completed by April.
The total cost of the work was estimated at $2.05 million. That included the multipurpose building with capacity for about 160 people, depending on the usage; a new car park; new road access; levelling of the rugby field, which would be moved slightly; and new floodlights, drainage and irrigation.
To date, the trust had raised just under $2 million.
Mr Bennett said that once tenders were in, the trust would know if it needed to "look at a very quick fundraiser" to get the total project across the line.
"We’re quietly quite confident we can do the whole ... works in one hit.
"At the end of the day we can’t drop the building out, we need a roadway to the building and we need a car park.
"The only variable is the field [but] we don’t want to do this nice building ... and the rugby field is still three-quarters of a metre fall from one end to the other.
"Now is the time ... I see the field as part and parcel of the whole big picture.
"We’ve got to shift things like floodlights anyway for the building, we’ve got to shift services for the building — we’re half the way through the field anyway, it’s almost like we can’t not do it."
Mr Bennett said while the project had taken far longer than had initially been expected, it had been important for it to take its time.
"The responsibility to get it right lies on us.‘‘We have to make this work — we’ve got one pot of money.
"We’ve taken our time and it’s taken longer than we had wanted by a long stretch but, at the end of the day, it’s better to do it right ... [than] cry over spilled milk and say, ‘We’ve got it wrong’."
When asked the cause of the delay in lodging building consent, expected to be in April, Mr Bennett declined to answer.
