Next steps in Roxburgh Entertainment Centre rebuild discussed
The Teviot Valley Community Board held a workshop following the meeting today, to discuss the next steps for the Roxburgh Entertainment Centre, razed by fire six weeks ago.
Through social media and feedback to the community board, members of the Teviot Valley community expressed their frustration that the workshop was not more widely advertised outside of the Central Otago District Council’s (CODC) website so that more people could attend and hear the discussion.
These sentiments were acknowledged in the public forum before and during the workshop, along with the devastating loss of the landmark community facility, which was still being felt keenly by the community.
Teviot Valley Community Board chair Norm Dalley and CODC property and facilities staff who attended the workshop, stressed that the purpose was to summarise what happened, to determine the next steps, but not to make any decisions.
In a slide presentation, Property and Facilities Manager Garreth Robinson and Property and Facilities Officer Bex Snape gave a brief history of the historic site dating from 1875, when the first hall was built, followed by the existing facility in 1931, and the various renovations and improvements to the building through the years, right up until fire destroyed it on 6 February 2025.
The presentation covered the fire investigation, façade removal, site clearance, metal removal, and ensuring that it was asbestos free, the measures taken to make it site-safe, particularly for the neighbours, and dust mitigation. The remediation costs came to $221,113.95, almost half the amount estimated, which included traffic management (to close one lane of the State Highway), engineers, asbestos testing and removal, security checks, fire agent call out, reporting reporting (including archaeological memo and support with Heritage NZ; archaeological authority and site assistance still to come), making the soak pit, demolition material to landfill and removal works.
The building is insured for about $6.4 million with a clause in the policy requiring the building to be replaced ‘like for like’, to be quantified in an independent quantity surveyor’s report, and by a further report if the return is lower than $6.4 million.
The Council’s intention is to rebuild the Roxburgh hall and entertainment centre to give back the community its space within the available budget, following the usual procurement process and market engagement with potential suppliers, and partnering for a design-build.
The team gave recent examples of this process in action, including the Cromwell Memorial Hall and the Manuherika Community Hub (estimated to cost $5.2m); a more comparable project because of the scale and strong community lead taken through all stages. Queenstown Lakes District Council’s new facility, the Luggate Memorial Centre, the first passive community building in the southern hemisphere, built for about $5m, was also given as an example of community project.
The next steps would be for the Teviot Valley community to appoint a stakeholder group, and hold a public meeting to get community input and information sharing.
The property team would formalise this process by putting a report into the next community board meeting on 1 May, by which time it was hoped there would be information back from the insurance company and more accumulation of knowledge by both community and Council.
To see the slide presentation go to: Roxburgh Entertainment Centre - Workshop Slides: https://www.codc.govt.nz/your-council/meetings/workshops
To see a recording of the meeting and workshop go to: Meeting and Workshop Recordings - Central Otago District Council
