Negotiations for the lease of the former Mitre 10 building in Anderson Heights are expected to be complete before the end of the year, bringing Wānaka’s proposed community youth centre one step closer to realisation.

At the urging of Wānaka locals, Queenstown Lakes District Council (QLDC) has been trying to secure the lease of the vacated building since a budget of more than $1.2M was approved by councillors in April this year to repurpose it for the benefit of the community.

The aim is to provide a permanent home at an affordable price for a variety of community organisations, including Kahu Youth and Aspiring Gymsports, which often struggle to find suitable premises.

Wānaka community sports advisor for Sport Central Tiny Carruthers is one of several locals who have been working on the proposal and presented the idea to the Wānaka Community Board (WCB) earlier this year. 

He’d identified multiple local community groups and clubs which had outgrown their current premises or couldn’t afford their ever-increasing rents and were seeking a new base within the next four years.

Wānaka Community Workshop volunteers were tasked with deconstructing the timber storage racks in the former Mitre 10 building. PHOTO: Supplied

The Wānaka App caught up with Tiny after he spoke at public forum during last week’s WCB meeting. He said he was surprised negotiations were still not complete given the council’s enthusiasm for the proposal earlier in the year.

“We don’t know the exact details of the negotiations [but] comments made by the community board seemed confident it would happen,” he said, which was “good news”.

Tiny said earlier this year he’d indicated there were 39 groups looking for space now or within the next five years. 

“There are more groups now. Some groups have made other arrangements, obviously the [former Mitre 10 building] can’t cater for all the groups. One group I know of found new premises only to outgrow them and be back looking again.”

Aspiring Gymsports has developed a waiting list because it has insufficient space at its current rented facility and will have no home base after July 2022, he said. 

WCB chair Barry Bruce said the terms and conditions of the building’s lease agreement will be presented by the Wānaka Community Board together with its recommendation seeking council approval at a meeting early in 2022.

Tiny said if it takes another three months to come before council for final approval “it will put pressure on groups that haven’t got lease contingencies in place”.

With negotiations ongoing, the former Mitre 10 building has not sat idle. Since the end of November, volunteers have been stripping out the big wooden storage racks in the store’s covered yard.

The deconstruction effort has been coordinated by the Wānaka Community Workshop (WCW) with three or four volunteers working most mornings over the past three weeks.

WCW’s Ben Acland said Mitre 10 had generously donated tools and other material left over after the store closed its doors to help get the WCW established on Gordon Road. At that time, Ben had suggested the idea of repurposing the wooden storage and was approached four months later to tackle the deconstruction “and keep all the wood”.

“A lot of the timber is treated but there’s also some untreated oregon and ply which is ideal for some of our jobs,” Ben said. 

Preschools and school activities can only use untreated timber, he said, so some of this wood will be repurposed to build “mud kitchens” - mini kitchens with fake ovens and hotplates used to make “mud pies”.

The volunteers have recovered a large amount of timber which is currently being stored on site until the decision is made on how best to repurpose it. 

Ben said the WCW has proposed to council that some of the material be reused in the fitout of the new community centre, in which the WCW could also participate, thereby reducing costs to the community.