Reopening of Wellington's St James Theatre delayed until next year
Wednesday, 23 June 2021
The reopening of Wellington’s St James Theatre has been delayed until next year, forcing New Zealand Festival of the Arts organisers to look elsewhere for the 2022 event.
The annual festival was meant to coincide with the reopening of the central city venue, which has been closed since 2018 after being declared earthquake-prone.
But Wellington City Council head of property Peter Brennan told Stuff on Wednesday the upgrade was no longer on track to be finished by December.
It was now due to be completed by the end of January at the earliest, and quite possibly later, leaving little breathing room for the festival, which is due to kick off on February 25.
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“We’ve asked the project team to have a look at the work programme … and they believe they could potentially achieve an end-of-January completion date,” Brennan said.
But that best-case timeline was “riddled with risk”, including further unexpected construction challenges, potential Covid-19 lockdowns, and further shipping delays, he said.
“Because of that significant risk, the council has advised WellingtonNZ, as the venue operator, that we can’t provide them with assurance that we can meet an opening date for the festival.”
Brennan said the $34 million project had been battling various challenges in recent months, including unforeseen structural problems inside the Category 1 heritage building, and delays on shipments of building materials.
Those delays had been caused by Covid-19 disruptions, backlogs at New Zealand ports, and the closure of the Suez Canal for six days in March when a container ship ran aground and blocked the waterway.
Most building materials, which were mainly heating and ventilation equipment, had been ordered from Europe, Brennan said.
Contractors needed to finish installing those services before they could begin work on the theatre upgrade.
New Zealand Festival of the Arts executive director Meg Williams said she would be meeting next week with the city council and Venues Wellington, a branch of economic development agency WellingtonNZ, to discuss alternatives to the St James.
The three-week festival is hosted across more than 30 venues in the Wellington region, but many of next year’s bigger events were scheduled for the St James.
“We will need to reframe our planned programme using other available venues, and work out how to still deliver a fantastic event with the venues that we have available,” Williams said.
“It is a huge disappointment, because we were really honoured to be part of the reopening of the space.”
The closure of the St James Theatre, as well as the Town Hall, which is scheduled to reopen in 2023, had been “really difficult” for Wellington, she said.
The St James Theatre was built in 1912 and was privately owned until the council bought it in 1993.
Brennan said structural problems encountered in the upgrade included badly damaged unreinforced masonry that needed to be repaired, and weathertight sealings that were in poor condition.
Workers also had to remove concrete between the theatre and an adjacent building to create “seismic gaps”, Brennan said.
The strengthening project will bring the theatre up to at least 67 per cent of the new building standard (NBS).
Wellington Mayor Andy Foster said it was disappointing the theatre would not be open in time for the festival.
“But we will still be looking forward to getting a grand old lady of Courtenay Place and the city back up and operating, and full of people and full of great activities.”