Hawke's Bay's twin-city police stations are about to go through their biggest breakouts.
But it will be the last time – the three-storey Napier and Hastings buildings themselves, rather than the custodial residents will disappear within a few weeks as demolition completes an era of replacement of major police infrastucture in the region.
Hastings firm Phoenix Construction has almost gutted and collapsed the interior and rear of the Napier station, the Station St frontage of which is expected to be collapsed early next week, while work in Hastings is also well advanced ahead of the felling of its Railway Rd frontage.
The emptied real estate will become carparks servicing a new Napier station which opened in December 2016 and the new Hastings station, including Eastern Police District headquarters previously based mainly in rented offices in Napier, was officially opened last December.
The Napier demolition started about five months ago, starting with the former cell block and garaging, but had been delayed by the need for specialist removal of asbestos, with the Covid-19 crisis also impacting the work, which is still expected to meet a deadline of completion by the end of the year.
