$400m investment aimed at revitalising 'decrepit' Tauranga CBD

After languishing for a decade, there is a new sense of momentum in the centre of Tauranga.

The city council is pumping $400 million into plans to redevelop the waterfront and build Te Manawataki o Te Papa, a new civic precinct in the city centre.

When Anne Tolley first arrived in Tauranga in 2021 as chair of the Tauranga City Council Commission, she was dismayed at what she found.

"I couldn't believe my eyes at how bad the city centre looked - how dirty, decrepit, and deserted."

Tolley said it was a tragic sight. But the commission hoped a new civic precinct and upgrades to the waterfront would change that, saying it could be the most significant investment in community facilities the city has ever seen.

Te Manawataki o Te Papa - or the 'heartbeat of Te Papa' - will take up a city block and include a new library, community hub, civic whare and museum, all facing an inviting green space.

Tolley was clear that she wanted it to create a real centre for the city, a place people can come to and enjoy.

The existing Tauranga Art Gallery will reorientate its building to face into the new civic precinct. Director Sonya Korohina grew up in Tauranga, and said the city centre was once a place people were drawn to.

"You'd go to the movies, do late night shopping, and you'd hang out eating hot chips and trying not to get up to mischief."

She said the investment would bring the city to life by making it a place people want to live, work and spend time.

Like Tolley, Korohina has a clear vision of a future when people can come into town and enjoy a range of activities like going to the library, then art gallery, and on to a show.

"It just means a much richer offering for our community."

Nigel Tutt, chief executive of Priority One, the economic development agency for the Western Bay of Plenty, said previous councils trapped the city in a negative cycle of underinvestment.

"Lack of council investment [led to a] lack of desire from the private sector to do more things because they were a bit unsure what the council was doing."

He said there had been a big change since the commission was appointed and the city was beginning to really hum.

Tolley agreed, saying you could tell private investment was coming back to the city centre.

"As you drive into Tauranga now, on the skyline there's something like five or six cranes with construction underway," she said, adding that private investment would make a difference to the city.

Work begins on the art gallery at the end of September and on the library and community hub early next year. Redevelopment of the waterfront, which will complement the new civic precinct and extend the city centre to the water's edge, was also underway.

By the end of 2028, the Tauranga city centre should be a very different sight to the one which once so dismayed Tolley.