Originally published in Waikato Times, Monday 19 January 2026.
The man who made it happen with a fixed cost contract. Fosters’ Leonard Gardner and the Waikato Regional Theatre under construction. PHOTO: WAIKATO TIMES.
If you’ve lived in Hamilton long enough, you’ll remember the day the doors finally closed at Founders Theatre. It was 2016, and although everyone knew it was coming — the warnings about safety and earthquake issues had been swirling for ages — the reality still hit hard.
Founders wasn’t just a venue. It was where schools performed their first shaky musicals, where international acts squeezed in when they couldn’t fill Spark Arena, where proud nans clapped until their hands stung. When it shut, there was a very real sense that the city had lost its cultural living room.
And that’s basically where this whole story begins. Because almost from the moment the “Closed” sign went up at Founders, people started asking: Well… what now?
What a transformation. PHOTO: Christel Yardley / WAIKATO TIMES.
The answer eventually grew into something much bigger than “just build a new theatre.”
What emerged was a vision for a whole new regional performing-arts hub, one that wouldn’t just replace Founders, but lift the bar for what Hamilton could offer. A place that would genuinely knit arts, community and city together. A place that sat in the heart of town, welcomed everyone, and looked out over the Waikato River like it belonged there.
And so, the Waikato Regional Theatre - now named the BNZ Theatre - was born, first as an idea whispered in community meetings, then as a proposal, and finally as a full-blown project backed by the Waikato Regional Property Trust and the fundraising energy of Momentum Waikato.
But dreams need land, and Hamilton isn’t exactly short on opinions about where things should go. The site that emerged — the old Hamilton Hotel block on Victoria Street — came with history baked into every brick. Waikato Times pieces from 2021 and 2022 talked often about the importance, and sometimes the controversy, of working with such a heritage-laden site. The idea wasn’t to bulldoze history and start fresh, but to build something new inside something old. And that challenge would shape almost everything that followed.
The auditorium under construction. PHOTO: Mark Jephson / WAIKATO TIMES.
The demolition phase stretched longer than anyone expected. It wasn’t a matter of “knock it down and move on” instead, workers had to peel the site layer by layer, saving what mattered, protecting the heritage façade with giant steel frames, and navigating asbestos and contaminated soil along the way. Even the 102-year-old American oak staircase — the one historians love to remind everyone was once climbed by Queen Elizabeth during her 1953 visit — was removed, tucked away like a precious artefact, and saved for the future.
Meanwhile, out front, passers-by peered through gaps in the fences and saw… mostly nothing. Nothing but a lot of dust, a giant wall of scaffolding, and the same familiar façade held together by what looked like Meccano for adults.
Paris Eyeington, a theatre performer who worked as a rigger on the theatre, checking out the newly-constructed stage. PHOTO: Kelly Hodel / WAIKATO TIMES.
“What’s happening with the theatre?” became one of Hamilton’s favourite questions. Waikato Times reporters asked it too — a lot.
Behind the scenes, though, the project slowly shifted from “destructive” to “constructive.”
By mid-2022, big concrete pours were underway. Foundations were being dug deep into the riverside earth. And by early 2023, the Waikato Times was reporting the first real signs of above-ground structural work. Steel beams. Shear walls. The first hints of the fly tower that would eventually dominate the skyline.
And through all of this, fundraising and management planning continued.
Waikato Times covered the launch of the 'Share the Stage' campaign — an initiative to make sure the community wasn’t just watching from the sidelines, but pitching in to help the theatre open debt-free. Later came the 'Take a Seat' campaign, where donors could sponsor auditorium seats and have their names engraved on brass plaques. By the time stories appeared in 2024 and early 2025, hundreds of seats and plaques had already been claimed, including one paid for by Waikato Times.
Momentum’s Mark Servian checking out the façade restoration. PHOTO: Christel Yardley / WAIKATO TIMES.
Then there were the delays. Every big project has them, but this one landed in a perfect storm: Covid and global supply-chain chaos, material shortages, rising construction costs, specialist labour bottlenecks, you name it. Waikato Times coverage was pretty frank about it: the opening date had to shift into 2025, then again into 2026. But the headline the Times repeated more than once was that the budget hadn’t blown out, something of a miracle for a project this complex.
Twenty twenty four was the year Hamiltonians finally started seeing their theatre. The Times ran stories as scaffolding began peeling away from the heritage façade. Suddenly there it was, the old Hamilton Hotel frontage still standing proud, but behind it, something completely new: timber, glass, stone, and the unmistakable shape of a contemporary performing-arts venue rising over the river.
The fly tower reached its full height — 33 metres — and in February 2025 the construction team held a topping-off ceremony. The Waikato Times covered the moment the final beam, covered in signatures, was lifted into place. Shortly after, the massive tower cranes disappeared from the skyline and it another visible sign that the heavy lifting was done.
The skirl of bagpipes echoed around the theatre when Fosters' Alec Calderwood played on the edge of the fly tower to formally celebrate the installation of the lightning rod to mark the completion of the exterior. PHOTO: Christel Yardley / WAIKATO TIMES.
Inside the venue shifted from “building site” to “theatre.” Seats were being installed. Walls were lined. Acoustic treatments were going up. Stage machinery was being tuned. Lights, rigging, and AV systems were tested. That beautiful century-old oak staircase, now fully restored, was back in position, ready to carry generations of new patrons up to the balcony.
By mid-2025, between the Times’ updates and the theatre’s own newsletters, it was clear the project had moved into the finishing stretch. The cladding of Hinuera stone was complete. The river-facing foyer windows were in. Spaces for orchestra, performers, stagehands, and community groups were ready to be fitted out. The building finally looked and felt like a theatre rather than a construction project.
And then came the big announcement: the Waikato Regional Theatre would officially open on 19 January 2026 with a three-night festival called To the Stars / Ki ngā Whetū. A gala, community performances, big-name headliners — the works.
Early days and still in the ground. PHOTO: Christel Yardley / WAIKATO TIMES.
From the closure of Founders to the final beams, it had been a decade-long journey. A journey reported step by step, month by month, in the Waikato Times. A journey from loss to renewal, from demolition to creation, from “What now?” to “Wow”.
But more than anything, it’s a story about a city figuring out who it wants to be. A city that kept its heritage front-and-centre, literally. A city that built something for everyone — from school choirs to international acts. A city that, after years of staring through fences at steel beams and scaffolding, can finally walk inside, look up at the lights, and feel that rising thrill you get moments before a performance begins.
A new stage.
A new heartbeat for the city.
A new chapter, finally ready to open.