The cost of strengthening Wellington Town Hall has increased by more than $20 million with an expectation the budget will rise further.
The cost of bringing the building up to 100 per cent of the national building standard was originally budgeted to cost $43 million, then increased to $58.5 million, and then $89.5 million in mid-2017.
If approved by Wellington City councillors next week, the project will start in March and is expected to take four years to complete, Wellington City Council chief executive Kevin Lavery said in a briefing today.
The council previously said the building would reopen in 2021.
Construction company Naylor Love has been awarded the contract for $112.4 million, with Mr Lavery saying the budget will increase further.
Mr Lavery said the Kaikōura earthquake leading to increased building regulations and a competitive construction market has led to the price rise and construction period being pushed back.
"We've been calm and measured; this is not a project to rush... so we were deliberately measured in how we've handled it," Mr Lavery said.
"It would have been foolhardy to press on. I'm very confident it was the right approach."
He said the council has spent millions of dollars on geotechnical assessments for the building, saying it would have held up the process and cost more for a construction company to discover issues further down the track.
He said borehole drilling has revealed conditions are worse than the council originally thought.
"The more we know, the more we can manage the risk."
Mr Lavery said the "challenging" project was one of the riskiest projects in modern times, adding that it was not for the faint-hearted.
He said councillors will also need to sign off on a significant contingency fund, which included potential risk scenarios.
He would not reveal the cost of this separate budget, but said if it was blown, the whole project would need to be reviewed.
The next two years of groundwork will be where the cost is most likely to increase, he said.
The 115-year-old building, which Heritage New Zealand categorises as holding special historical value, was closed to the public in November 2013 for strengthening work to begin after it was deemed vulnerable to damage in an earthquake.
In 2007, it was assessed as only meeting 20 to 25 per cent of the new building standard, Wellington City Council states on its website.
In a statement, Wellington Mayor Justin Lester said of the strengthening cost's estimate, "The tender price is higher than our quantity surveyor estimate and the original budget. This was always a risk".
"The good news is our engineers believe they can increase its life by 100 years and we can keep an iconic building in our city.
Wellington Chamber of Commerce chief executive John Milford told 1 NEWS he wasn't surprised by the blow-out, given the age of the building.
"To be honest, Wellington ratepayers want to retain it and there's going to be a cost to doing that. Ratepayers are going to have to suck it up," Mr Milford said.
He said, however, that there will be a return on the investment through the Town Hall music hub partnership with Victoria University of Wellington, the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and the Wellington City Council.
"I suspect none of us will be around to see it because it will take so long to get it."
Victoria University of Wellington and the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra said in statements they’ve been regularly updated on the increased costs and timeline changes by the council, and both remain committed to creating a ‘world-class’ national music centre in the Town Hall.
NZSO chief executive Christopher Blake said as a future tenant, its rent will be unaffected by the increased strengthening costs.
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