Waikato Times: Face value - Regional theatre’s façade restoration a delicate under-cover operation

Originally published in Waikato Times, Saturday, 7 December 2024.

By Mike Mather.

Underneath the scaffolding shelter, a lot is happening. Momentum Waikato communications and marketing manager Mark Servian checks out some of the handiwork of the restoration team. PHOTO: Christel Yardley / WAIKATO TIMES.

It may sound like the kind of activity that would bring you before the courts, but there is a lot of “crack injection” going on outside the Waikato Regional Theatre.

However, the cracks being injected here are those in the neoclassical façade of the old Hamilton Hotel building now firmly attached to the theatre currently being constructed in an $80 million project led by Foster Construction.

It’s a painstaking and precise process that is taking place away from the eyes of the public beneath covered scaffolding on the western side of the building, facing onto Victoria St.

This artist's rendition, created by the Jasmax architecture firm, shows how the entranceway to the old Hamilton Hotel will look, once the Waikato Regional Theatre is complete and open to the public in about a year's time - a return to the glory days. IMAGE: Jasmax.

This week the Waikato Times was given an exclusive look at it.

On a multi-storey scaffold tour of the facade work, Foster’s site manager Dave Middlemiss explained the crack injection process was designed to intentionally retain the flaws that had crept into the masonry in the years since the hotel was originally built in 1923.

A team of specialists had checked over every inch of the masonry for any kind of unsoundness, Middlemiss said.

The little round holes mark the “injection points” on the facade, into which a solidifying epoxy resin is fed. PHOTO: Christel Yardley / WAIKATO TIMES.

“If it is in any way ‘drummy’ - lose or rattly - then we bore holes into it and inject an epoxy resin that spreads through and solidifies. It makes everything nice and sound.”

Anyone wandering beneath the building need never fear a chunk of concrete unexpectedly descending on their heads in the event of an earthquake.

Once the entire process is complete, the facade will be much more solid than it was 100 years ago. This is also due to seismic screws that have been drilled into it from the rear, to firmly hold it on to the new theatre building being built behind it.

The restoration work is taking place under a construction shroud which - now that the gigantic A-frames holding up the façade have been removed - will soon be extended along the entire frontage. PHOTO: Mark Jephson / WAIKATO TIMES.

“The intent is not to make it look completely perfect, but it does need to be completely safe,” Middlemiss said.

The window frames on the facade are also being remade and replaced.

The next section of scaffolding covering the frontage of the building will appear early in the new year, and will eventually “wrap” around the side of the building into Sapper Moore-Jones Place.

Retaining the Hamilton Hotel façade has always been a key part of the project.

The tiled roof atop the theatre’s façade also harks back to the Hamilton Hotel’s original look. PHOTO: Christel Yardley / WAIKATO TIMES.

It is protected by a heritage order, so it would have needed to happen whatever was built on the site. However, the theatre construction team has always seen it as a major asset - and an opportunity to emphasise the decades of historic events that have taken place there.

It’s not just the outside of the structure that is being preserved. There are numerous other “heritage elements” of the hotel that are being restored and will be reinstated once the main construction phase of the project comes to an end.

These include the grand central staircase, which shall return complete with balustrades and wall linings.

Foster Construction traffic and logistics manager Graham Boswell has been looking after many of the heritage items taken from the Hamilton Hotel. This ornate-looking roof corner does not rate as such though. It's made of fibreglass.

The fittings, linings and built-in furniture from the former Queen’s Suite, where the late Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip stayed on the night of December 30, 1953, will also be carefully put back together.

The Queen’s descendants won’t be likely to be kipping there though. That room is destined to become a dressing room for theatre performers.

Other hotel items that were saved at the behest of Heritage New Zealand include some heavy timber doors, decorative ceiling “roses” made from fibrous plaster, Union Jack-design door windows and overlights, and a range of leadlight windows.

The last of the giant A-frames that were propping up the Hamilton Hotel facade have now been removed, and the scaffolding - under which the restoration work is taking place - will be extended around the corner into Sapper Moore Jones Pl. PHOTO: Christel Yardley / WAIKATO TIMES.

A container’s worth of the original rimu and kauri timber salvaged from the hotel will also find a new life in the form of tongue-and-groove flooring and panelling.

As the construction of the new theatre’s superstructure nears completion, the site will remain a hive of activity for some time.

The building of the theatre’s fly tower will, over the coming months, be topped off. The roof will also be completed, and the addition of Hinuera stone cladding to the river-facing side of the building will continue.

Although a completion date is yet to be finalised and announced, the Waikato Regional Theatre is expected to be fitted out and fully operational by this time next year.