But at a cost to MIT. Also renewed pressure on getting the South Link built
MIT Manukau and Manukau Rail Station
Yesterday the MIT Manukau Campus in Manukau City Centre opened for business. Next Saturday will be an open day from 10am to 5pm with free train travel to and from Manukau Station (a pity the South Link is not built so that the bulk of South Auckland who would go to MIT Manukau could actually catch the train hassle free).
Patrick from Transport Blog got some very nice photos of the facility and you can see them here (highly recommended): Manukau Redemption
The Herald also ran a story on it yesterday which can be seen here:
The new building at Manukau Institute of Technology opens today. [Source: NZ Herald]
A new $100 million tertiary campus opens in Manukau today – with backers hoping it will not just transform the central business district but also the area’s study rates.
However, Manukau Institute of Technology (MIT) is now under significant financial strain after the collapse of Mainzeal added about $30 million to the project and delayed its completion.
The impressive new building, which sits between Hayman Park and Westfield Manukau City, ended up costing around $100 million after Hawkins Construction took it on.
The basement floor of the seven level building opens into the Manukau Rail Station.
Commuters who take the stairs or escalators from the station emerge into a corner of the ground floor, which is designed to be a public space, with retail spaces and cafes.
The building’s defining feature is a soaring six story atrium space, which floors on each level open out into – an arresting feature born from necessity.
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Sadly though the opening of the new campus has come at a cost: Continuing from the NZ Herald
However, the collapse of builder Mainzeal mid-construction added $30 million to the cost, most of which MIT shouldered.
The institute had funded the project through borrowing, Mr Quigg told the Herald on a tour yesterday, and would look to grow enrollments in business and IT by 5 to 10 per cent each year.
“That growth assists immeasurably in contributing to paying that debt off…we can’t cut costs anymore, so we need to grow.”
MIT’s 2013 annual report showed domestic student fee revenue fell below budget last year, as an improving economy made study less attractive.
But Mr Quigg said he was sure the new campus could help achieve needed growth – particularly because South Auckland had about half the national tertiary participation rates.
MIT has frozen all other capital expenditure including a planned Pasifika Centre and some maintenance funds.
Mr Quigg said those areas would be priorities for new spending, which he hoped would be possible in five to seven years.
The next two phases of the campus development could be assessed after that point, he said. Auckland Council has given MIT a 99-year peppercorn lease on the land.
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Lets hope MIT can grow out of that debt and continue forward. What would be nice is if the Government wrote that debt off for MIT seeming the Mainzeal collapse was of no fault to MIT.
Radio NZ also had a piece on MIT which you can listen to
Bit of a shame from AUT who should know better and cooperate rather than criticise if we want South Auckland to uptake tertiary study more and more.
I will be back in Manukau on Monday so I will be able to see a MIT and Manukau Station without all the construction gear that I saw when I got the last batch of photos earlier this month. Needless to say I am pleased that the facility is now open. A small step into as Transport Blog put it, Manukau’s redemption.
Renewed Pressure for the Manukau South Link
With the MIT Manukau Campus to soon take in its student pressure goes back Auckland Transport for the Manukau Rail South Link to be built as soon as possible. As has been mentioned before in this blog the South Link would allow direct services between Pukekohe/Papakura and Manukau Station itself without the cumbersome and unsafe transfer at Puhinui Station further north. We are waiting for a public announcement on the South Link due out later this year from Auckland Transport. I did see in Transport Blogs Manukau Redemption post more calls for the South Link to be built rather soon. While Transport Blog did put a condition of Greenfield development needing to occur in the South to make the South Link possible that condition is now met with the Wesley and Addison Special Housing Areas either under way or soon to be under way. Wesley SHA the largest of all SHA’s in Auckland to date.
Lets hope that the South Link will be built and operational by Semester One next year.
Talking Southern Auckland 