Caves' new centre taking shape

Tourism Holdings hopes the revamp at the caves will boost the number of domestic visitors. Photo / Supplied

Work has finally begun on building a $12 million visitor centre at the Waitomo Caves, more than three years after the original centre burned down.

Grant Webster, chief executive of the attraction's owner, Tourism Holdings, said the company had had to renegotiate a lease with the Department of Conservation and Maori landowners as well as applying for approval from the Overseas Investment Office and building consents and this had delayed the work.

"Essentially we couldn't run them in tandem so we had to wait for one to be completed before moving on to the next."

The new centre is being built by Hawkins Construction and is expected to be completed by next March.

It will be vastly different from the old centre, which had a 1970s feel. "The environmental focus is one thing that is clearly different and the scale is completely different."

The old visitor centre had a small cafe which seated 40. The new one will have not only a 45-seat cafe but also a 200- to-250-seat restaurant which will cater for international visitors, including the Indian and Chinese markets.

It will also have an exhibition space, conference facility and theatre as well as extra space which could be used to house a nature encounter.

The construction includes a teflon-style glass ceiling made from the same materials used on the outside of Beijing's Olympic swimming centre The Cube.

Webster hopes the revamp will encourage more New Zealanders to come back to the glow-worm caves.

At present 85 per cent of its visitors are international but Webster said he wanted to lift the domestic visitor number to around 30 per cent.