The Hawthorndale Care Village is one step closer to reality after building consent was granted by the Invercargill City Council.
The first few buildings of the specialised dementia care village will be erected at the Tay St construction zone in the coming months.
Three local building firms have been awarded contracts to construct the $36 million facility over the next two years, and it is expected to open mid-2025.
Henderson Construction will build the main village centre, Amalgamated Building Ltd (ABL) the 13 care houses and Bennett Homes the 10 retirement villas.
Construction project manager Nick Hamlin of Maxis Projects said it was great to have three companies which had played such a huge part in Southland doing the build.
"We’ve been here on site since about September last year, and it’s about $5 million of work that’s gone in the ground, so it’s nice to actually have the builders here starting to box out some foundations and start pouring some concrete and timber framing and everything’s been all ordered.
"Within the next couple of months, we’ll start seeing some buildings come out of the ground."
ABL Southland general manager Brad Harper, who will be leading the largest build on site — the 13 care houses — said it was exciting to start work.
"ABL put a lot of work into this over the last couple of months. The project’s a huge milestone ... For us builders, to turn up with all the civil done, it’s a huge plus."
The facility is inspired by world-leading Dutch dementia village De Hogeweyk and follows a social rather than a traditional medical/institutional model of care, allowing residents to live as normal a life as possible and exercise choice over their daily lives in a safe environment.
The project is expected to generate 300 jobs during its construction phase and, once open, create 11 new jobs and retain 87 job positions from the Calvary Hospital transition.
Calvary Hospital manager Margaret Brown, who initiated the Hawthorndale Care Village project nearly 10 years ago, said yesterday’s milestone had long been in the making.
"I think you can start to see the way they’re mapping it out, and in another few months, people will really see with the buildings going up, how significant it will be."
"It takes your breath away, really."
