Wellington’s national music centre takes different shape

Wednesday, 26 June 2024

The view from Willis Bond’s planned Jervois Quay development in Wellington, which was proposed for the carpark next to the Michael Fowler Centre.

Victoria University is no longer considering a yet-to-be-built Willis Bond building for Wellington’s national music centre project, citing uncertainty over when the structure may be erected and the price it may be charged to rent space there.

The building ‒ which Willis Bond planned to develop on a site next to the Michael Fowler Centre ‒ faced a roadblock last year when an Environment Court ruling found the council’s public notices inadequately described the development’s location.

The public would have another chance to submit on the development if Willis Bond chose to re-notify the resource consent, but that hadn’t yet happened.

Miranda Richardson, a spokesperson for Willis Bond, told The Post the company was still working on its plans for the site.

A rendering of what the national music centre was initially supposed to comprise: a new Willis Bond building, left, which would house NZ School of Music students and NZ Symphony Orchestra staff (this plan has now been shelved), the Michael Fowler Centre, and the redeveloped Town Hall.

“With the introduction of the new district plan, there have obviously been changes to planning requirements for this site since then, which is part of the reason we are in the process of reviewing our plans – to understand what impact these changes have on the site,” Richardson said in an emailed statement.

Victoria University vice-chancellor Nic Smith said that because nothing was yet built, the university now wasn’t considering it as an option for excess teaching and rehearsal spaces for its NZ School of Music. That was despite several floors of the development being a key part of original plans for the city’s national music centre, which will also include the quake-prone Michael Fowler Centre and the redeveloped Town Hall that’s due to reopen in 2027.

There was also a question mark over whether the university could afford the rent price Willis Bond may ask for, given its precarious financial position.

Smith said a new NZ School of Music head, professor Kim Cunio, had been appointed and would start in October. The university would work with Cunio to “define the accommodation needs for [the music school] and explore options on and off campus to meet those needs”, Smith told The Post.

In mid 2023 staff and students protested over cuts to many of Victoria University’s courses and staff, including those from the NZ School of Music, whose team has now shrunk by almost a third.

In September last year the music school’s former director, Sally Jane Norman, confirmed that nine roles in the school ‒ nearly a third of its staff ‒ were being disestablished as part of the university’s restructure, which she said would have a huge impact.

Kerry Prendergast, who’s led a campaign that’s fundraised $22 million for the music centre project, with another $10m in the pipeline, said all options around Civic Square would be reviewed for the excess music school spaces.

On Monday it was announced that two floors of the redeveloped Wellington Central Library, that were earlier this year proposed as a new location for the music school, had been found to be unsuitable for the school’s requirements.

It was the latest spanner in the works for the music centre project, which was first called into question last year after the NZ Symphony Orchestra’s former boss said its new offices would not necessarily be in the same building as the school ‒ a major u-turn from the initial music centre vision, in which its advocates spoke of intermingling students and professional musicians.

The orchestra had also planned to use the Willis Bond development for office space and a performers’ lounge, before that plan was scrapped. Its chief executive, Kirsten Mason, declined to answer specific questions about the sites it was now canvassing, saying only that it would continue to progress its plans for a new home as part of the music centre precinct.

James Roberts, the chief operating officer at Wellington City Council, said it could be an option for the orchestra to move its offices into the library spaces the university had turned down.