Porirua Campus Upgrade Starts

For immediate release

Porirua Campus Upgrade Starts

Whitireia has started its multi-million dollar development programme to upgrade its main campus in Porirua. Over the last few weeks, several of the old pre-fabricated buildings have been re-sited so building works can begin on stage one of the campus development programme.

Construction work will now begin on building “one” which will have a total footprint of around 3817 square metres, will cost around $16.5m to complete and will house the Health Faculty, administration, classrooms and conference facilities.

The building will include laboratories, simulation suites and will provide state-of-the art training facilities to around 1000 nursing and paramedic students who study at Whitireia.

The development of this block will take around 12 months to complete with its scheduled opening for early 2013.

A blessing of the site of this building was held today. Whitireia staff members, Council, contractors involved in the development project, invited guests and Ngāti Toa were all present at this morning’s site blessing ceremony.

It’s very exciting to be at this stage of the development project said Don Campbell, Chief Executive, Whitireia New Zealand. “This project has been a long time in the planning and seeing the work going on over the last few weeks and the blessing today shows the progress we are making. We are about to embark on a building project that is going to create a campus of the future. We are replacing more than 40 prefabricated buildings with purpose built buildings that will be connected through learning streets to provide a modern educational learning environment and be very community focussed” he said.

The Porirua campus development will be a statement to the Porirua community said Roger Sowry ONZM, Chair Whitireia Council. “It is a significant build for Whitireia and for Porirua and a courageous decision by all involved to invest in building works of this nature at this time” he said.

The Porirua campus development is a two stage programme. Stage two provides for a new student services and arts programme building.

ENDS

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