Big spruce up planned for Rotorua CBD

Hairdressers Teegan Bennett (front) and Nadia Hodge (rear) of Salon St Bruno are among the inner city workers looking forward to Scrub Rotorua Day. Photo / Ben Fraser.

An all-day concert and art exhibitions are being planned to entertain locals as they scrub the central business district in a bid to make it more appealing.

The Heart of the City project team will hold the inaugural Scrub Rotorua Day on Saturday as part of a campaign to lift the image of central city businesses.

Organiser Mike Steiner has urged retailers, business owners and landlords to take responsibility for sprucing up their shop fronts and buildings. Now, they will have music while they scrub.

A free community concert will be held in the City Focus from 9am to 5pm, featuring local musicians and dancers, a DJ, honky tonk pianos to play and plenty of family fun.

Three exhibitions will be on display in the empty Tutanekai St shop between Stevens and Suzanne Grae.

Brigitte Nelson, the Focus Group/Rotorua District Council liaison officer, said one would be a black and white photo exhibition of "Rotorua - how we were". She said the Rotorua Museum had provided photos of Tutanekai St and the inner city throughout the city's history.

The fibreglass fish painted as part of the council's recent Fish out of Water competition will also be brought together into one "school", she said.

Finally, there is the Wall of Words, where sheets of black paper will be provided for people to write "words of endearment". It's hoped the words will later be turned into an art installation, Ms Nelson said.

Keep Rotorua Beautiful is also pitching in by co-ordinating new garden planting in the city on the day.

Mr Steiner said there had been a great response.

He said at least two buildings had been identified for a "complete makeover".

"[Tutanekai St between the City Focus and Pukuatua St] was the prime retail space in Rotorua 20 years ago," he said. "Now this is the area in greatest decline."