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