From All Black tests and Football World Cup qualifiers to big concerts and events, Te Kaha/Canterbury Multi-Use Arena will be able to host them all.
Christchurch will soon be home to a state-of-the-art multi-use arena. The half-a-billion-dollar project will have a seating capacity of 30,000 for sports events and will hold a minimum 36,000 spectators for large music events.
In 2020 the Government and the Council approved the multi-functional arena to be built in central Christchurch between Madras, Barbadoes, Hereford and Tuam streets.
The state-of-the-art arena will add to the central city’s vitality, catalyse further development, help re-establish Christchurch as a sporting and cultural capital and boost the city’s economy by attracting visitors from around New Zealand and the world.
The Council has allocated $303 million to the construction of Te Kaha, and the Crown has approved $220 million towards the project(external link) from the Christchurch Regeneration Acceleration Fund.
The project investment case(external link) from 2019 says that in order for the Canterbury Multi-Use Arena to be competitive and attract international and national events, it needs to have:
Preliminary designs for Te Kaha have been approved and the developed design under way, as the Kōtui consortium works through the project's design phase.
Led by Australian-based stadium construction experts, BESIX Watpac, Kōtui includes Christchurch-based construction companies Southbase Construction and Fulton Hogan, local seismic engineering specialists Lewis Bradford, Christchurch architects Warren and Mahoney, and global stadium design experts Populous and Mott MacDonald.