Opening date for Kaitāia’s $11.5million Te Hiku Sports Hub and new town square

The finishing touches are being made to Kaitāia’s $11.5million Te Hiku Sports Hub, which will be officially opened on June 5, with a formal public opening soon after

June 5 will be a day of double celebration in Kaitāia, with the town’s $11.5million Te Hiku Sports Hub and new town square both officially opening.

Kaitāia’s $11.5million Te Hiku Sports Hub will officially open early on the Wednesday, with a later formal public opening, while the new town square will open at 5.30pm.

Hub project manager Mark Osborne said the idea was first mooted about 10 years ago and it had been hoped to have the centre opened last September. However, issues including hold-ups in obtaining some of the pool’s reticulation pumps and systems meant the opening was delayed.

Osborne said the invitation-only official opening of the sports hub would be 7am on June 5. The formal opening to the public will be later , with that date still to be confirmed.

The town square project is the final part of the award-winning Te Hiku o te Ika Revitalisation Open Spaces Project that has helped transform Kaitāia, Awanui and Ahipara with art and place-making developments.

The project is co-funded by Kanoa, the Government’s Regional Economic Development and Investment Unit, and the council, which secured funding through its Long-Term Plan.

Pop-up stalls and entertainment will feature at the formal opening of Kaitāia’s new town square.

Project spokeswoman Andrea Panther said cultural artworks will be going up in the last week of May and that will complete the Te Hiku o te Ika Revitalisation project, which took three-and-a-half years.

Panther said a fun opening day will be on June 7 with pop-up stalls and entertainment.

Osborne said the sports complex was already proving a big asset as it was recently valued at $20 million: ‘’Not a bad return for an $11.5m investment’'.

He said the hub would be a tremendous asset for the community with a variety of sporting codes set to use it, including rugby, league, football, netball and hockey.

Te Hiku Sports Hub project manager Mark Osborne is ready to welcome the public into the new facility when it opens on June 5

Osborne said it was exciting and a relief to get the project to this stage, despite the challenges it faced -- including the soaring costs of materials.

‘This project will really have many positive benefits for the health and well-being of the local community and will have a massive impact here.’’

Osborne said as a not-for-profit organisation, the trust had some problems raising the $11.5 million needed, and was still a couple of hundred thousand dollars short, but he was confident that would be raised.

‘’We’re not the council so we can’t just use a targeted rate for funding and while we’ve had great support from the council, we’ve also had funding from Pub Charity, The Oxford Trust, Foundation North and other funders,’’ he said.

The then Labour Government also put $3 million towards the project.

‘’One of the biggest challenges has been that since we started, the costs of materials etcetera have risen by more than 40 per cent. But we wanted to ensure everything was up to gold standard so the asset lasts another 50 years or so.’’

The facility has two wings - the wet wing which includes the pools and the dry wing that has a gym.

The pools and gym have underfloor heating with a hydrotherapy pool, toddler splash pool, learn-to-swim pool and an eight-lane pool 25m by 18.6m. This main pool slopes from 1.2m at one end to 2m.

Osborne said the wet wing also had an area set aside for a spa pool and sauna in the future.

Te Hiku Sports Hub supports the nearby fitness track, multi-use sports fields, courts and cricket nets.

Mike Dinsdale is the editor of the Northland Age who also covers general news for the Advocate. He has worked in Northland for almost 34 years and loves the region.