Fate of QEII building uncertain
WILL IT STAY OR WILL IT GO?: The local community board will decide the fate of Sports House, part of the old trotting club and still standing at Queen Elizabeth II Park after the main stadium was wrecked in the quakes.
The future of Sports House at Queen Elizabeth II Park - one of the few remaining historic buildings in the east of Christchurch - is now in the hands of the local community board.
After accepting a $438,000 tender to demolish the remaining QE II stadium facilities, the council has left a decision on the fate of Sports House, which used to be the old New Brighton Trotting Club stand, in the hands of the Burwood-Pegasus Community Board.
Council staff will report to the board on options for repair, relocation, or demolition.
Board chairwoman Linda Stewart said she wanted to see it preserved - preferably on its present site.
Repairs had been estimated to cost about $70,000, she said.
"It's well worth preserving,'' she said.
She would like to see Sports House and the Village Green both fixed up and saved, and also the nearby Early Child Care centre.
If the two buildings had to be moved, she wants them relocated within the ward.
"We are very short of community spaces and they are desperately needed in Dallington, Avondale, even Waitikiri, and South Brighton and South Shore,'' she said.
Sports House is believed to have been built in the early 1900s for the trotting club.
The first horse race was held on the site in 1886, and the trotting club ran its first race day there in March 1895 with totalisator turnover of 1648 pounds and stakes of 190 pounds.
The last meeting was held in 1963 before a crowd of nearly 10,000 with a tote turnover of 104,625 pounds, and the park was sold to the council for 75,000 pounds and eventually redeveloped for the 1974 Commonwealth Games.
The stand was later used for Civil Defence, and then leased by Canterbury Cricket before being closed after the February earthquake.
