The roof has been raised on the new National Hockey Centre in North Shore's Rosedale, marking the half-way point in the construction of the new world-class sporting facility.
When completed, the facility will become the leading international hockey venue in New Zealand and also the new home for North Harbour Hockey.
Harbour Hockey Charitable Trust Chair Peter Felstead, says seeing the roof raised onto the new pavilion building recently was a major milestone.
“The centre will be a hockey hub of excellence for North Harbour Hockey’s schools, clubs, competitions and association programmes,” says Felstead.
Four new hockey turfs are being built, two of Global Elite standard and two of National standard. Other features include floodlighting, covered seating for 450 spectators and 370 new carparks.
A new walking and cycling bridge and shared path are in the process of being built to connect surrounding communities to Rosedale Park.
Upper Harbour Local Board members recently attended a site visit to see progress and were delighted at what they saw.
"We were all impressed to see what had been built and pleased to see it all remains on track for completion later in the year," says Upper Harbour Local Board Chair Margaret Miles.
"Hockey players from across the north will have a truly fantastic facility when it's completed, and one that that will provide world-class facilities for many years to come," she says.
Hockey is one of the fastest growing sports in New Zealand and the new facility will cater for that growth.
“We’ve been bursting out of our existing pavilion for several years now," says Felstead.
"Thanks to support from our funders, we have also been able to upgrade the facility to properly accommodate our members, supporters and visiting teams."
The new National Hockey Centre will also become the new training base for our national Vantage Black Sticks teams.
Construction of the centre started in April 2018 and is scheduled to be complete in December, enabling North Harbour Hockey to move into the new facility in early 2020.
It is one of several projects being delivered as part of the NZ Transport Agency's Northern Corridor Improvements Project. When completed, the project will deliver a much-needed transport upgrade for the North Harbour community.
The upgrade will include over 7kms of new walking and cycling paths, a new motorway connection between SH1 and SH18 and will open up access to the Western Ring Route and travel to the airport.
For further information on this project, and others that make up the Northern Corridor Improvements Project, visit nzta.govt.nz/nci
