HAMILTON

CITY DEVELOPMENT
Forget Founders Theatre,
Build A New CBD Theatre
Say City Experts
By Dileepa Fonseka
High-profile city architects, developers and planning experts are firmly behind
demolishing Founders Theatre and replacing it with a new arts centre in a different
location – but one architect thinks there is not enough money or patronage to justify
such a theatre.
Hamilton City Council considered three options at its April 28 meeting: demolishing
Founders Theatre for $300,000, refitting for around $20 million, or building a new
theatre for an estimated $52 million.
Iain White, Professor of Environmental Planning at the University of Waikato, said he
thought replacing Founders Theatre with a new theatre closer to Victoria Street and
the river was a “no-brainer”.
“It would be a great benefit to the CBD to have [Founders Theatre] relocated to where
it should have been all along [closer to Victoria Street and the river].”
White recently sat on Hamilton City Council’s seven-member Ferrybank evaluation
panel and is an international authority on environmental planning.
“The refitting just doesn’t make sense.”
Brian Squair, architect and owner of Chow:Hill architects, who was involved in a
review of Founders Theatre around seven years ago, agreed that a new theatre
somewhere between Victoria Street and the river would be the best option.
“Bringing people into the city is a key to a whole bunch of knock-ons.”
Squair also dismissed suggestions that other venues like Claudelands could be used as
a substitute.
“Claudelands isn’t designed for the arts, maybe a rock concert or Waikato Bay of
Plenty of Magic.”
Squair suggested the large cost of a new theatre, estimated by council to be
somewhere around $50 million, would be outweighed by its benefits over time in the
same way Waikato Stadium’s initial cost overruns were.
[Brian Squair of Chow:Hill likens the decision to build a new theatre to the decision to
refurbish Waikato Stadium.]
[Iain White thinks the decision to build a new theatre is a “no-brainer”. ]
“You want it [a theatre] in the city heart where people can come and make a night of
it and spend the money and you get the wider economic benefits – any other decision
and you lose those wider economic benefits.”
White said the theatre’s current location was not close enough to most of the city’s
bars or restaurants for it to see a return from a $20.4 million refit.
“When the stadium was refurbished it went over-budget, it was a nightmare, it was
terrible…[but] we wouldn’t do without it now.”
But Antanas Procuta, of PAUA Architects, who was part of the winning Ferrybank
proposal and heavily involved in Clarence Street, Meteor and Riverlea theatre
upgrades, thinks the cost of a new theatre has been vastly underestimated by council
staff and city finances would not be able to support it.
Procuta estimates the cost of a new theatre would probably be a lot closer to $100
10 : BIZ HAMILTON : ISSUE 1