Mark Stewart: Christ Church Cathedral Reinstatement Director on the new, cheaper restoration plan

The Christ Church Cathedral rebuild could be the last milestone for the Garden City to thrive.  

Work will begin next year to complete the nave, entrance way, tower, and restore the rose window by 2030. 

This halves the funding to about $40 million, with the Anglican Church pledging another $20 million. 

Reinstatement Director Mark Stewart told Mike Hosking they've been working on this for years and have a robust plan. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Praise the Lord. There's life in the christ Church Cathedral rebuild.
After all, got a new plan shortfall that brought the
project to a standstill that seems to have been reduced
to about forty million. They'll now proceed in stages and
fingers Cross were good to go in about five years
time now. Mark Stewart's the director of the christ Church
Cathedral Reinstatement Organization. Marks with us Mark morning, Good morning, Mike.
This is desperately needed, isn't it. But I mean for

(00:20):
those of us who from christ Church, but look it
outside in if there's one thing that needs sorting, this
is it.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
This is it, Mike. I mean, this is the catstone
to the end of the earthquake era. You know, We've
got Cathedral Square that sits there sort of anguishing, and
yet everything around it has revitalized, and we're on file.
We're about to open the stadium and several months away,
and we're going to bring all this international attention to
christ Church and the renaissance after the earthquake. And yet

(00:49):
we had this big light on our landscape right in
the center of the city.

Speaker 1 (00:52):
Are the numbers solid? That gap is solid? It's forty
million ish and you've got it covered.

Speaker 2 (00:57):
Yeah, I believe that's pretty much. We've we've been working
on the site for several years now. We've only been
insider for you know, eighteen months or so, and that's
when we really could do all the assessments as to
how to fix it, the state of it's you know,
repair and you know what state it was actually in,
which was really badly damaged as you can imagine. So

(01:19):
we've been we've had we've been pouring over these numbers
for several years. You know, the thirty percent of the
cost of the cathedral is actually in masonry, so this
is Stonemasons putting things back if you like. So you know,
this is a labor intensive job pretty much. But you know,
we've we've done all the estimates. We sort of know
how to fix it. We've got the we've got all

(01:40):
the design and underway, and we've had to reconsider that
now in a staged approach too, because some of the
foundations need to be laid for the future. But nonetheless,
we know we're building a brand new tower from scratch
out of the ground and one hundred percent of building
code for that particular part of the building, and you know,
we've we've got a robust plan, fantastic.

Speaker 1 (02:00):
Well, I wish you were with it and I'll be
there with bells on and twenty thirty Mark Stewart, who's
the director of the Christchurch Cathedral Reinstatement Group.

Speaker 2 (02:06):
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