How did they do it?

October 31, 2009
As Nelson embarks on the latest round of debate over plans for a performing arts theatre and conference centre, Geoff Collett looks at what other New Zealand towns and cities have achieved in recent years. --------------------
Eight years ago, I was on a mission - sent off on assignment by The Nelson Mail to far-off, balmy Napier. It seemed like a good idea at the time: to find out how a provincial city of a size and nature not terribly dissimilar to Nelson could spend millions of dollars on the sort of theatre and conference facilities that were being talked about for here.
If there were any lessons to be learned from what I discovered in Napier, in the 2000 words dutifully filed for the Mail in July, 2001, nobody seemed to have noticed.
Eight years on and Nelson is still thrashing around over the same issue it was confronted with then, when the Millennium Centre Trust was valiantly trying to convince the community that it was a time to be bold and invest to fill the gaping hole left by the fiery demise of the Majestic Theatre in 1996.
Still, there were a couple of points from the Napier mission that still strike as noteworthy.
The Hawke's Bay city had done an impressive job in ramming through millions of dollars worth of council spending on the facilities in question, despite an astonishingly nasty political atmosphere - far more vicious than anything witnessed here. The obvious conclusion was that all it needed was a mayor who was determined to the point of bloody-mindedness, had a steel-plated hide, an unashamed pump- priming approach to spending public money and the smarts to get the votes around the council table.
It also can't have hurt to have had the shell of the necessary facilities in place, even if they were run-down. Napier already had its theatre, an Art Deco beauty that had fallen on hard times, and a function venue/hall similarly in need of attention.
Bringing them up to the standard the Napier council wanted so it could claim to be a progressive and appealing city to live and visit cost a shade under $11 million in 1990s money and helped burden the city council with a layer of political brutality that lasted for years.
For old times' sake, I checked back this week on how things were going in Napier. According to the council's Tourism Services business, which manages the facilities, they attract reasonable business but require ongoing council support. The city council's most recent annual report (2007-08) showed the theatre was used 154 days that year and cost the council $454,000 to support; the conference centre (which can be used by community organisations for a discounted, non-commercial rate) was used for 252 days and cost the council $232,000.
Whatever Napier's experience, if you are looking for examples of other regional centres that have spent up to establish good-quality theatre and/or conference centres, you have a wide choice.
Rotorua, for example, which has not only developed a large convention centre incorporating its civic theatre, but has also built a massive events centre capable of hosting 2600 people at a sit-down banquet.
Or maybe Hastings, with its recently refurbished opera house-cum-conference centre, completed in 2007 for $12m.
Or possibly Blenheim, which has scored itself a modern convention centre in a novel council-community partnership, and is now planning a new civic theatre.
And most likely New Plymouth, which has spent more than a decade and tens of millions of dollars on an array of facilities and gained international recognition for its trouble, including a Livable Communities award for the best city of its population size in the world.
New Plymouth District Council chief executive Barbara McKerrow points out that her council had a couple of advantages when embarking on its spend-up. Its projects include a major redevelopment of its opera house, now known as TSB Showplace, for $6 million a decade ago and a $12.7m direct contribution to the ambitious combined museum, library and visitor centre, Puke Ariki (another $11m was raised through council partnerships).
"This local authority has been in the fortunate position over many, many councils of having invested effectively in its base infrastructure, and I think that's probably what gives us a bit of an edge at the moment, " Mrs McKerrow says.
And it sat on its shares in its electricity distribution company, Powerco, eventually selling up for about $260m, which was then invested with an independently managed but council-owned fund. The return from the fund is used to offset rates - to the tune of $21.5m this year alone (compared with a general rate take of $57.6m).
Even so, "our community doesn't necessarily understand sometimes how fortunate we are", Mrs McKerrow says. "No-one likes to pay rates, so we have the same debate about paying rates as any other community does."
The council there accepts that facilities such as theatres and the Puke Ariki centre will never be commercially self-sustaining; the public is up for an ongoing commitment. The council's policy is to fund the capital costs from debt, to spread the burden over successive generations of ratepayers. In the case of Puke Ariki, $3m of the capital raised was set aside for ongoing "refreshing" of the building.
The New Plymouth experience has been driven by a philosophy that there is more to investing in such facilities than hoping for a direct economic return. "One of the key statements we make about the strategic intent of the New Plymouth District Council for our community is that we'll offer an attractive living environment that compares favourably, nationally and internationally, " Mrs McKerrow says.
"Skilled people have choices about where they decide to shift with their families to live and work, and when you're in a provincial centre off the beaten track - and I guess Nelson is similar to New Plymouth, in that sense - you have to work quite hard to persuade people that it's a good place to come and live.
"The fact New Plymouth is enhancing its reputation as a reasonably vibrant place to live because of the events that are held here, and the access to art galleries and good museums and other community facilities - all of these things help turn around the attitude and the image."
Among New Zealand's provincial centres, Rotorua is a long way from Nelson, in all sorts of ways, but its experience is still notable if only for demonstrating the possibilities of thinking big. As probably the country's oldest and best-known tourist city, it has always attracted conference business; in the mid-1990s, it built a dedicated convention centre, which incorporated its old 700-seat civic theatre and could host up to 400 delegates. In recent years it struggled to cope with the demand for bigger gatherings, and decided to take the plunge into the big time of conference- hosting, building the Energy Events Centre.
Opened in February, 2007, this enormous venue provides for both stadium sports and big conventions, with capacity to host banquets for up to 2600 sit-down guests.
The general manager of Rotorua District Council's Events and Venues management business, Peter McLeod, says the 11,000-square-metre building incorporates the city's old sportsdrome and several purpose- designed features for conference hosting, and cost $28m (catering fitout costs were additional, paid for by the catering contractor).
The district council drove the project, but, as Mr McLeod puts it, "every now and then with these venues you need to get lucky". In this case, the Rotorua Energy Charitable Trust (established from the proceeds of the sale of the local energy company) agreed to make it a flagship project, paying about half the cost as "essentially a no-strings- attached philanthropic donation". The council put in $8m with $2m to be repaid from operating surpluses, and the final $6m came from community fundraising.
But was it worth it? "It's been unbelievably successful in terms of conferences, " Mr McLeod says. "The number of conferences we've attracted is about five times the original projections and the number of attendees is about 7 1/2 times."
It's been additional business, not at the expense of the smaller convention centre, and the Energy Events Centre largely pays its own way, though the council funds its depreciation.
Rotorua's established reputation in the convention market and its location close to major population centres mean it can compete in a corner of the market traditionally dominated by Auckland and Christchurch; that and the fact it has 13,000 tourist beds.
Hamilton is rebuilding its Claudelands events centre to include capacity for conferences of 1000-plus delegates and will be in direct competition with Rotorua, but Mr McLeod is confident his city can hold its own. He says that despite its size and cost, the centre did not generate significant controversy, and what opposition there was has evaporated since it opened. Perhaps that reflects the city's acceptance that tourism is its bread and butter.
"Everybody wheels out the line, 'build it and they will come', " Mr McLeod says. "You can never be that reckless in terms of committing capital expenditure. You need to back it with good business plans and good research and so on, but there is an element of truth in that. You do grow the market each time these new facilities are developed and we've been delighted by the success of it."
At the other end of the scale from Rotorua's big-thinking is Blenheim's rather more boutique approach, which is, according to Marlborough Mayor Alastair Sowman, a highly successful one.
About five years ago, the council piggy-backed on a plan by three of the town's clubs (the RSA, the Workingmen's Club and the Marlborough Club) to build a combined clubhouse on the banks of the Taylor River in Blenheim. The council saw an opportunity to include a convention centre in the new building; it took the downstairs space and, $3.9m of council money later, had a facility that can host conferences of up to 700 delegates, or 400 if they are dining.
"It's exceeded all expectations, " Mr Sowman says. "We did a budget, of course, and we're way ahead of that, and it's proving very good."
The council has contracted the running of the centre to hotel operator Scenic Circle, which was required to add 50 rooms to its Blenheim hotel as a condition of its contract, and there are no continuing costs the council has to cover. There are no plans to go bigger, either - medium-sized conferences are what Blenheim is suited to, Mr Sowman says.
The council has now turned its attention to plans for a new civic theatre, a $15m project to replace the 20-plus-year-old existing theatre, which was developed in an old supermarket building.
While the existing theatre has attracted a steady flow of visiting shows, including some that bypass Nelson, the mayor says it needs extensive work and at 400-plus seats is on the small side. Rather than spending millions there, the council and local theatre trust want a new and bigger venue.
Their site of choice is next door to the combined clubs and convention centre and Mr Sowman says it could have "huge benefits" for conference activity, as well as improving the theatre's appeal.
The site is proving contentious because of concerns about the loss of car parking spaces (and a council plan to build a new parking building nearby). But presuming the development goes ahead as planned, Mr Sowman is optimistic. A rebuilt theatre will need ongoing council funding - he says up to $200,000 a year - "but it's no different to councils running sports grounds and other things".
The key to Blenheim's progress has been a large block of land at the base of the Wither Hills that was bought by a former council years ago and has been gradually subdivided and sold off since. That met the $3.9m cost of the convention centre and Mr Sowman expects the council's $5m contribution to a new theatre will also be entirely from reserves.
"When you've only got a limited ratepayer base like we have - we only have about 23,000 ratepayers - this is a great boost."
One common theme through what all cities have achieved is the often highly charged political atmosphere that has developed around their projects. Back in New Plymouth, Mrs McKerrow says that at times her council simply had to tough it out, knowing the end result would be the right thing.
"You do need strong leaders on your council who will listen to all of the arguments but make a decision which they feel is the right decision.
"It is quite tough. Opponents of anything that a council is trying to achieve will always be very vocal, much more vocal usually than the supporters of the project, and it can seem to a councillor that the entire community is against them and it's much easier to step back and say, 'Let's not do this'.
"But if we'd done that in New Plymouth, we would not have most of the major cultural facilities we have here."