Waikato Times: Waikato Regional Theatre opening date pushed out to 2025 but budget still on script

Originally published in the Waikato Times, Monday 1 April 2024.

By Mike Mather.

Momentum Waikato communications and marketing manager Mark Servian keeps a close eye on the sudden flurry of visible construction activity at the theatre site. Photo: MARK TAYLOR / WAIKATO TIMES.

The show will go on, albeit a little later than expected.

Opening night for the $80 million Waikato Regional Theatre has been pushed out to 2025, about a year later then originally planned, due to a tight market for materials and other factors yet the budget is still going to script.

There is, however, still room for Waikato residents and businesses to take a starring role in what promises to be the jewel in the region’s cultural crown.

With construction at the Victoria St site going through a growth spurt, focus has now shifted to plugging the final $2m hole in capital funding - a gap that has been substantially reduced from an initial $5m shortfall.

The Share the Stage fundraising campaign will ensure the Waikato Regional Theatre opens totally debt-free (video first published in 2022).

“Construction is still within budget thanks to Herculean efforts from [the theatre’s construction firms] Fosters, RDT Pacific and Charcoalblue,” theatre general manager Gus Sharp said. “We aren’t anticipating a shortfall on opening but there is still funding to get in the door.”

But it is unlikely the Hamilton City Council - which has already stumped up an initial $25 million, and committed to an ongoing $1.1 million annual maintenance budget - will be able to contribute much else, given its ongoing battle to balance the books and avoid a debt blowout.

However, the cavalry is coming in the form of ordinary Hamiltonians and business owners - who have already gone no small way to saving the day.

The Waikato Regional Theatre has been going through a sudden growth spurt, with the superstructure rising above the carefully-laid foundations in the manner of a gigantic and glorious mushroom. Photo: FOSTER GROUP LTD.

More than 230 seats in the “Take a Seat” initiative - part of the Share the Stage fundraising campaign organised by philanthropic organisation Momentum Waikato - have now been sold.

The scheme involves the purchasing of plaques that will be permanently affixed to about 670 chairs in the theatre’s 1300-seat auditorium. At $1500 per seat, that means more than $345,000 has been raised through that initiative alone.

Many of the seats are being bought by local families and individuals keen to leave their mark on the new facility. For businesses and other entities with a little more spending power there is also a business collective support programme, wherein donations of $10,000 or more can be made.

It is suddenly obvious to even the casual observer what the new building’s purpose is. Photo: FOSTER GROUP LTD.

Among the firms which, so far, have done their bit were New World Rototuna, Bayleys Real Estate, event equipment supplier ACLX, and building suppliers Thomsons ITM.

And anyone who really wants to save the day can, for a cool $2m donation, secure the naming rights to the theatre for a 10-year period.

Momentum communications and marketing director Mark Servian confirmed that prize had, as of last week, yet to be claimed.

The naming rights would apply from the date the theatre would open its doors - which will now be sometime in early to mid-2025.

Cranes will puncture the city skyline for some time yet. Photo: MARK TAYLOR / WAIKATO TIMES.

Some of the delays from what was initially hoped to be a 2024 mission completion were attributable to a tight market for materials, delays wrought by Covid and other factors.

Other smaller hold-ups were due to overseas contractors unexpectedly being liquidated - “so we are in the market for some theatre-specific stuff,” Sharp said.

The construction of the theatre superstructure is now in full swing, and people regularly passing by the site should see almost daily changes to the skyline.

Thereafter, there will be a long period of time in which it will appear the build will have ground to a halt - but the inside of the building will be the scene of furious activity as the fit-out and finer details are put into place.

“As you can imagine it is not straight forward building a theatre. It’s not like an office block or retail centre. Progress overall is going well,” Foster Construction site manager Dave Middlemiss said.

“The auditorium structural steel and reinforced concrete floors are progressing, with the basic structure for them finished in a few months, after that the cross-laminated timber forming the curved and tiered seating areas will be installed.”

A big part of the job was incorporating the “Beaux-arts”-style facade of the old Hamilton Hotel - the remnant’s of the site’s former life - into the new build.

“Retaining the façade has added a little complexity but nothing unmanageable,” Middlemiss said.

There had been frequent checks to ensure the integrity of the nearly century-old structure “with no issue - live laser distance monitoring for movement helped with that”.

“Currently we are tying in the level 2 floor and roof structure above that to the façade, in preparation for removing the temporary supports later this year.”

That floor would be a series of steel beams with a reinforced concrete floor on top of them.

“From there, the structural steel frame to support the roof can be completed which ties to the top section of the façade and holds that in place.”

The temporary supports would be removed only once they had the top floor of the theatre completed, as this would effectively brace the facade. Roofing over the “heritage section” of the building would be installed soon after.

“The original windows are being retained and refurbished in position generally with a few that were removed prior to demolition behind the façade, being restored currently.

“These ones will be reinstated into part of the new structure being formed to replicate the original behind the façade area,” Middlemiss said.

The restoration work was being undertaken by specialist tradespeople, managed and co-ordinated by Foster Construction.