That is a big investment and as a city we are unlikely to ever recover that kind of capital cost. That’s not to say we shouldn’t build them. Quite the contrary, a well thought out arena and venue is an asset to any city’s economy. But they need to wash their own face and many times they don’t. “Build it and they will come” seems to be the philosophy. No, they won’t. Build it based on sound commercial principles and a robust business case that is not based on stubborn emotion and loaded questioning and we may have a fighting chance. 

The 2012 Christchurch Central Recovery Plan identified a number of exciting new facilities, including a new Convention Centre, Metro Sports Facility, a new stadium, refurbishment of the Town Hall, a new performing arts centre. These Anchor Projects were to be the catalyst for bringing private development back into the city. Five years on, the city is a buzz of construction activity but not with the anchor projects. Most of these are yet to break ground and the private developments they were to catalyse have left them behind.  

The Town Hall is alone in its visible progression: the Convention Centre has had more than a few stuttering starts before finally breaking ground a couple of months ago, the Metro Sports Facility has once again fizzled and failed to fire and the stadium / arena continues to be the source of ongoing debate as to what it should ostensibly be. 

I am a supporter of the recovery plan. I, like many of us am disappointed with the subsequent inflexibility to change or further develop it.  

I still find it strange how the projects were carved apart on Day One and each treated in glorious isolation.

The reality is that none of these anchor projects ever did gain their promised potential, largely due to the varied and convoluted funding and pricing routes that were chosen – the Metro Sports Facility being the latest casualty. 

Come on folk, let’s think smarter and think big picture. The plan to build a new Christchurch Arena and a Metro Sports facility to support our community, grass roots and elite indoor sporting teams, was based on great logic. It reflected the best of what we wanted for a bigger, bolder Christchurch. 

Some impressive artistic imagery was produced and billboarded, illustrating what the Metro, the Convention Centre and the Stadium would look like, but stubborn inflexibility to change and develop these ideas has stymied all projects ever since.  We must have the courage and pragmatism to avoid committing to one expensive course of action based on the emotion of the imagery – no matter how pretty the pictures look.   

New Regeneration Minister Megan Woods has already flexed her muscles and shown her no-nonsense mettle by pulling the pin on the current iteration of the Metro Sports Facility, as the long-held fears of budget overruns and ratepayer burden loomed increasingly real. She has pledged to re-look at all the anchor projects and to find a way to make them happen.  

Maybe it is time to take stock and look at the business case for all our new facilities together, in the whole, holistically. In my view a combination of facilities could create more significant and lasting benefits for our community, reducing construction costs and opening the potential for additional revenue by using the proposed Metro Sports location for other commercial development. The economies of scale during construction, reduced ongoing operating costs and the need for supporting transport infrastructure for just one facility instead of two, would all ensure savings could be achieved. 

And for larger events, surely having conventions located across two or three hubs can’t be a bad thing? Christchurch is not a big city. You can walk between these four sites in ten minutes. Would we not want our thousands of conventioneers to stray outside the convention centre, to walk through, see, and spend money in, our wonderful regenerated city? 

Let’s think smarter. Let’s look at what we actually need. We need a decent sized Convention Centre. We need an indoor space that can seat and stand 12,000 spectators to match the capacity of the Vector Arena in Auckland. We need a stadium arena that can be adapted for larger events, and a floor space that is appropriate for hosting a variety of functions, including concerts. It does not all need to be within the stadium bowl. Perhaps it could be in a covered multi-purpose space within the sports hall part of the Metro Sports Centre. 

Coventry Ricoh Arena in UK has an open stadium and an attached closed permanent arena, with purpose designed mother grids, supports, stage facilities, service runs, exhibition and trade show functionality, purpose designed back of house support facilities. It is designed based on a robust business case and is busy all week round. It hosts multiple events, both sporting and otherwise, has an integrated shopping mall, major commercial tenants and an integrated hotel. It works. It shows it can work. It works because we thought about it and what would work in its particular economy and environment.  

After many years of irritable financial grumbling between the government and the city council, in 2017 the Council, government and newly formed Stadium Trust commissioned a pre-feasibility study to evaluate what a new arena should look like. At the end of August, the study was published.  

While the report recognises the importance of making the venue multi-use, it fixates on a handful of sporadic events and then spits out the bold assertion that without a roof and a retractable pitch, the stadium will make a loss. Say what? A roof and retractable pitch actually increases the construction cost by, in the report’s own figures, $128 million, bringing the total cost a shade under half a billion dollars.  

It’s a big number and the study does little to justify its conclusions. Where I expected to see a carefully considered evaluation of economic viability and needs, instead I found a lot of emotive text and imagery and no real analysis of any substance. The authors clearly believe that the city decided long ago it wants a stadium with a roof, so the report sets out to confirm this as a requirement. Why? So we can attract more concerts. This despite acknowledging a poorly designed roof can kill the acoustics required of a concert. 

Further, it cites as an absolute necessity the need for a retractable pitch for other events such as concerts, Nitro Circus and…well… actually that is all the report identifies. Nitro Circus is already a regular (two-yearly) tourer of New Zealand and does not require a 30,000-seat covered arena to perform in. And does the case for investing in an arena depend solely on Adele’s next concert tour? 

True community multi-use means a facility that the community will use 24/7 – incorporating facilities such as meeting spaces, community programmes, fitness, wellness, education, sports clinic, gymnasium, exercise, sports science and commercially lettable spaces as well as complementary sports facilities, such as are planned for incorporation into the Metro Sports Facility. All have been incorporated to similar facilities elsewhere in the world and all bring an added dimension and true community integration. There are also myriad options and opportunities for commercial adjuncts, and integrated associated and relevant commercial businesses, which have not been adequately explored.  

The report dismisses hospitality opportunities out of hand. That is a wasted opportunity. There are great examples of commercial hotel and franchises and facilities management companies working with stadium environments, with the stadium owner taking a guaranteed return and little risk. Many of these are local authority owned facilities. 

I have been involved in many stadium developments. We have designed and built stadia to incorporate education facilities, exhibition and convention spaces, even a hotel franchise integrated into the main stand. The hotel suites face out over the pitch for most of the time and convert to corporate boxes on event day. Weekday business men love it. And where do they eat? In the arena’s restaurants. Where do they meet? In the arena’s corporate hospitality facilities, all adding to the use of the arena as an everyday facility. Waking in up in a hotel room overlooking a sports pitch to see the groundsman lovingly tending the turf – fantastic. Opening the curtains to see a concrete pad and the inside of an empty warehouse with the grass parked outside on pallets…not so much. 

The report states numerous times that a roof is needed to attract concerts. Yet it acknowledges that a roof can also kill the acoustics required of a concert. 

It cites protection against weather, and includes images of wet concerts, foggy rugby matches and poncho clad queueing spectators. But statistically it does not delve into the numbers. It does not look at how many events are cancelled due to poor weather, or how many event attendees it puts off. In fact, over the past 10 years there has not been a single rugby match or test cancelled due to the chance of the players getting a bit wet. 

“But providing a roof makes hosting concerts easier” I hear you say – or at least those of you who ploughed through the report in its entirety. Point of practicality. The high pitch point for a rugby pitch is 18m above centre. The back row of the highest stand needs to be able to see this point as a basic requirement of spectator viewing. So, the stand roof needs to angle upwards sufficiently to give this sightline. That means that typically the roof will be at a height of 25m or higher. The leading edge of the stands need to be angled upwards to provide continuous view. Consider a concert and staging. Hanging heavy lighting rigs from a height of 25m just isn’t practical. So, I am sorry but the argument that providing a roof attracts promoters by saving them $200k in set up costs is far from watertight. 

And let’s not forget, Adele made headlines for completing her open-air concert in Auckland in the pouring rain. Did her fans leave the arena? No, they donned rain ponchos and clapped all the louder. 

At the end of the day, a roof keeps 30 players and three officials dry. A well-designed stadium bowl keeps spectators dry, the weather and wind out and allows the pitch to thrive. Don’t get me wrong, a roof is nice to have on a stadium, but that is all it is. There are many ways to skin the cat, using lightweight roofs, retractable, concertina, rotating interlocking structures …. Or no roof at all. It should not be the make or break that determines whether the project flies.  

Then there is the retractable pitch which is, dare I say it, nothing more than the latest fad. Of many thousand stadia around the world, there are only a handful with retractable pitches. These are homes to major league sports teams that regularly – and I mean 20 times per year – attract crowds of over 30,000 people. I am all for civic pride and believing in ourselves, but can Christchurch really justify spending enough money to grab a top five Google search spot for the best stadia in the world?  It would be great to think so, but really? There are other, better, smarter solutions to achieving what we need in the city – a suite of fantastic, complementary new facilities that bring people, events and prosperity into all corners of the city. 

And is a lot more than pretty pictures.