Christchurch’s new multi-use One NZ stadium is set to open on strong financial footing, with Venues Ōtautahi confirming it will operate at a surplus without requiring ongoing operational support from ratepayers.
Chief Executive Caroline Harvie-Teare said the organisation’s three-year plan showed the stadium would cover its own costs while also supporting the wider venues portfolio.
“There’s no operational support needed for the stadium from council. It actually is at an operating surplus and at a level sufficient enough to offset all of the operational funding required for the whole venue portfolio,” she said.
“It’s massive. We’re really, really happy, like we’ve been working a long time to get to this point. On its own, the stadium stacks up operationally. So it also means that we can self-fund incentive, you know, the attraction of major events to the stadium over the coming three years as well.”
Harvie-Teare said there were no forecasts for capital investment from council until about seven years in.
“Operationally, again, we’re looking well beyond that three years that we won’t need operational support from the council,” she said.
The financial outlook coincides with confirmation of the first major event at the venue, the Super Rugby Super Round over Anzac weekend. Harvie-Teare said it was a symbolic way to mark the opening.
“It’s so exciting to have that first event announced. Any event that opened that gorgeous new venue for our city was going to be significant, but the fact that it’s a celebration of rugby, which is at the heart of our culture, makes it even more so. It means so much to so many. The most important thing about opening a venue that is so symbolic of the last phase in our recovery, the last of the anchor projects, is that it was something really accessible to many. And I guess the festival of rugby does exactly that.”
