Good progress is being made on the repair of Christchurch's quake-damaged Town Hall.
Artist's impression of a restored Christchurch Town Hall. Photo: SUPPLIED
The project was expected to cost $127 million, and the work involved constructing new foundations underneath the 43-year-old building, where the ground gave way during the 2010 and 2011 quakes.
Last year the hall was labelled as "past its use-by date" by Earthquake Recovery Minister Gerry Brownlee, whose preference was to demolish it and start from scratch.
The main auditorium of earthquake-damaged Christchurch's Town Hall on 8 July 2015. Photo: RNZ / Conan Young
But Liam Nolan, who managed the building for the city council, said he was confident ratepayers were getting good value for money from the repair job.
"Whenever you talk to someone about the Town Hall, it always comes back to the memories they have had in those 40-odd years since it has been opened.
"This is a project that could sit anywhere on the globe, it's such a fantastic building. The economic business case behind it is really robust, there were a number of options in terms of building new through to repairing it. With our insurance policy, this was the only affordable option."
Mr Nolan said the Town Hall was due to reopen in mid-2018.
