Hub Project Update March 2022

New name reflects kaupapa

While it remains a crucial sporting facility the Tūparikino Active Community Hub is being designed as a valuable asset to boost community health, vocational pathways and strong partnerships - it is much more than a sports centre.

The project is building on bicultural foundations, with mana whenua involvement woven through the process. As part of this commitment, the Tūparikino hapū, mana whenua of the site along with Ngāti Te Whiti hapū, have gifted their name to the project.

Embedding health and wellbeing into the project will include identification of innovative health and wellness strategies that speak to mana whenua while complementing traditional sport activities on site. Stories of the whenua and wairua of its people will be pivotal in shaping the site.

Consultation with project partners and mana whenua will continue to develop names for the main hub building and project precinct as work progresses.

Hub building location confirmed

A major milestone has been recently reached with the decision that the main hub building will be sited on the outside of the racetrack near the current stadium.

This location, together with a central option, was carefully tested and refined. The location chosen has a number of clear benefits including:

Stronger user links to Pukekura Park.

One user scenario is friends attending their young children’s sport at the Hub before some head to the park for a run together. They return to the Hub to use the changing facilities and then enjoy a healthy café lunch before catching the closing stages of their teenagers basketball game.

Better player and spectator experience

Without a large central building there are more options to create sheltered locations and welcoming spaces near the fields and turf to improve the playing and spectator experiences.

Cost savings

This location makes the Hub less expensive to build and to operate. The connected buildings will be more efficient to staff and operate while having less people concentrated inside the track will remove the need for costly pedestrian underpasses.

Viewshaft issues

This location keeps important viewshafts clear including those for racing and those that fall under District Plan Requirements.

Work in progress

Design team search

Work is underway to appoint the Lead Design Team to continue the process. A Request for Tender is open now and a team is expected to be in place next month. Stakeholder workshops for further input into the facility design will kick off mid-year.

Sustainable funding model

A comprehensive 30-year financial model is being developed to help us better understand the long-term operating costs of the facility.

Covid-19 has had an effect the project’s build cost and with the escalation of costs seen around the construction industry of late, all steps are being taken to optimise funder and stakeholder support while providing best community value.

Funding streams and partnerships under development

The past six months have seen many positive discussions with stakeholders and funders locally, regionally and nationally, including Sport New Zealand.

All parties coming together and contributing fairly will make the most of the hub's potential and much work and planning is being done to ensure funding is well co-ordinated and structured to acheive this. We look forward to sharing more on our partnership with groups across the community in the coming months.

Working with Taranaki Different & Better

Since late 2020 Sport Taranaki has been working with the sport and recreation sector on the Taranaki Different & Better project. This project seeks to transform traditional ways sport and recreation is governed and delivered in Taranaki to tackle longstanding issues and provide better quality experiences for participants.

These issues include:

Volunteer capacity and capability
Lack of sustainable funding and greater demands on funding sources
Duplication of efforts and resources
Models that reinforce competition not collaboration
Changing participant behaviour

Taranaki Different & Better is proposing the development of new models for the governance and delivery of sport and recreation in consultation with the sector, councils and funders.

The new ways of working involved in Different & Better will lay the foundations for collaborative, participant-centred sector that fosters wide community participation and the Tuparikino Active Community Hub will provide quality, consolidated facilities with design and programming flexibility. Both projects are committed to developing financially sustainable models for future sport and recreation and dovetailing them will optimise resources to achieve an integrated solution involving people, funding and facilities.