ECan criticised after spending $1.2m bracing heritage facade

Saturday, 1 March 2025

The Odeon Theatre on Tuam St, behind a white shroud, and the reopened Lawrie and Wilson building on the right.

Environment Canterbury (ECan) has spent $1.2 million shoring up the heritage Odeon Theatre in central Christchurch - one of two projects heavily criticised in an independent audit.

In a separate project, ECan spent $1.1m on plans for a new depot in Kainga, plans which were largely unused.

A report by consultants Deloitte - hired to examine what went wrong with the Odeon and Kainga projects - was discussed by regional councillors behind closed doors last week. Only the report’s summary which identified “capability gaps” inside ECan, has been released to the public.

ECan’s initial budget for bracing the façade and foyers of the historic Odeon Theatre on Tuam St was $1m. But a further $200,000 was approved by councillors after the “discovery of complex, previously unknown underground services”, said Giles Southwell, ECan’s director of corporate and public transport services.

These required “complicated excavation … and changes to foundation design and cost”, Southwell said.

Asked if heritage architecture was a core responsibility of ECan, Southwell replied with one word: “No”.

ECan’s Giles Southwell at a council meeting last March.

When asked on Friday about ECan’s decision to buy and restore heritage buildings, local government minister Simon Watts said councils should “spend responsibly”. He said the Government had been clear local authorities should “rein in the nice to haves” and focus on 'delivering the basics brilliantly“.

ECan bought the two neighbouring heritage properties next to its Tuam St headquarters in August 2020 from Ōtākaro Ltd, a central government agency, for $2.95m. Heritage advocates cheered the move.

This ”strategic purchase provides options for the future,” said Miles McConway, ECan’s director of finance and corporate services at the time.

The Odeon Theatre at 218 Tuam was built in 1883, was the oldest masonry theatre in New Zealand, and worthy of a Historic Place Category 1, the highest possible.

It was badly damaged in the earthquakes, and some seating, the stage and the fly tower were demolished. The facade, stairway, and upper and lower foyers remain.

The Odeon still covered by containers, left, the Lawrie and Wilson building under repair and ECan’s modern HQ on the right.

An ECan spokesperson said its Category 1 status meant these remnants could not be demolished.

The neighbouring Lawrie & Wilson Auctioneers Building at 210 Tuam was built in 1910 and has an Historic Place Category 2 rating. It was the Christchurch City Council’s parking unit office for a time.

It was strengthened in the 1990s and got through the earthquake years with moderate damage.

ECan replaced the roof, refurbished the stone façade, improved fire escape paths and brought it up to 100% of the Building Standard.

When it reopened in 2022, ECan took some space while a tenant used some other.

'It is very fortunate that our council was able to acquire this unique piece of our city's heritage and preserve it for future generations,“ said Jenny Hughey, ECan chair at the time it was reopened.

“The building has significance to central Christchurch as a place of trade, having hosted a colourful range of businesses, professions and groups over the last century,” she said.

Years earlier, shipping containers were placed in front of both buildings for protection and Tuam St traffic had to kink around them. The buildings were on the Christchurch City Council’s dirty 30 list of derelict buildings.

The city council insisted ECan had to remove the shipping containers, Southwell said. “The only way this could be achieved [for the Odeon] was by supporting the facade structure in another manner,” he said.

ECan looked for a private sector partner to help redevelop the site and facade. An agreement could not be reached with a preferred partner and ECan is considering its options.

Cost overruns and staff lapses

ECan’s Kainga depot under construction in 2023.

ECan ran into much larger difficulties on a second project - a new depot on Main North Rd, Kainga, which was to have a green five-star rating and built to emergency operations centre standards.

The budget was $4.1m, according to ECan’s finance team. But the Long Term Plan 2018-2018 said it was $6.3m and The Press was told in 2023 that it was $7.5m.

In any event, two procurement processes in 2020 and 2021 returned costs of $11m and $11.5m and the project was scaled back.

But not before $1.1m has been spent on architects and consultants for the first design, little of which found its way into the scaled back depot.

In the end, the Kainga budget “worked to” was $4.1m, Southwell said this week. “This was exceeded,” he also said.

It identified “capability gaps” inside ECan. The projects were “not set up for success” and did not have the “right people in the right roles”, according to the executive summary of the report that was made public by ECan’s Audit and Risk Committee for its February 20 meeting.

Deloitte identified nine “improvement opportunities”, five of which were high priority. They were “clear goals and responsibilities, comprehensive project reporting, integration of project teams and ECan’s finance function, managing conflicts of interest, and contract management practices”.

“It is essential there is an understanding of what good practice looks like, along with the appropriate commercial acumen to drive the right project outcomes,” said the executive summary.