Hawkes Bay Multisport and Community Centre

Pacific Environments NZ Ltd was approached by the HBCFC Trust in 2016 to develop a Masterplan for the future development of the Hawke’s Bay Regional Sports park. The centre was a regional version of the acclaimed Millennium Institute of Sport (NZ High Performance Sports Centre) that Pacific Environments completed in 2012.

Pacific Environments worked with the HBCFC Trust during the master planning process, to enable the individual sports facilities to be built without the necessity of completing the previous staging and allowing the Trust to complete each facility when funding and community-need arises for the individual sport.

A programme was developed that successfully combined a variety of activities into one building. Facilities include Indoor Netball, Volleyball, Climbing and Athletics; with a pole vault dome; which all link to a Health Centre, Gym, Café, Sports Lab, and several flexible office tenancies. In addition to the Sports Hall, Pacific Environments designed a 40-bed hostel to host visiting sports teams and athletes including 2 x fully accessible suites to provide for disabled person. The hostel can accommodate a total of 43 persons depending on room configuration and utilisation.

Sustainable and functional design principles and have been used throughout the facility to create long-lasting value, by providing low maintenance cost and further reduce operating costs.

The insulated Sports Hall allows for year-round training at a moderate temperature and lowers the running cost of the facility. Large, high-level fans provide air circulation during summer as well as directing winter heating. Passive natural light from high level along the east and lower level from the west is supplemented by LED sports lighting. The Sports Hall roof trusses have been designed economically for cost, structural sizing, access to building services and birds eye sports recording, as well as maximizing internal height requirements for the sporting codes. The northern end of the Sports Hall has been constructed to allow for disassembly to extend the building for future requirements, allowing further facilities to be added including two full indoor netball/ basketball courts, bouldering, greater exercise Gym capacity and leasable office areas for the administration area.

Heralded as “transformational for the region”, the facility benefits the community and nurtures and develops top athletes.