Mystery Creek landscape is ready for change

Over the next 15-20 years the landscape of Mystery Creek Events Centre is about to change. Literally.

The 88 hectare campus has long hosted events like Fieldays, Parachute festival, even staging sporting events and business conferences that have seen hundreds of thousands people pass through the gates.

However, in March the call was sent out by the National Fieldays Society to architects, urban designers and planners throughout New Zealand and internationally to enter the Master Plan Design Challenge contest for the chance to redevelop Mystery Creek.

It was the first time the Waikato area had organised an event-scape challenge, drawing in 11 specialist firms from within New Zealand and abroad.

From the initial 11 contestants, the field was then narrowed down to three. The finalists Beca, GHD Ltd, MOAA Architects were each awarded $5000 for their achievements before Beca was announced as the winner in May.

Project coordinator Carene Cohen said the board’s decision to redesign Mystery Creek had been on the cards for a while. As the master plan takes shape over the next two decades it provides the chance to attract a number of different events to Hamilton’s unique base.

“It just creates an opportunity for more events to come to Mystery Creek of different sizes, of different specifications and at the moment we’re very flexible but flexibility only lasts so much.

“Whereas if we do have a master plan we can build towards something that is entirely flexible and really open to any kind of event – international, local, national whatever the case may be.

“It’s been coming for a while, and we just felt is the right time to do it now.”

The Master Plan Design Challenge was a way for Mystery Creek to flex and adapt its property to cater for the wide and varied size of the events it manages and hosts, according to National Fieldays Society chief executive Jon Calder.

“We sort of see it as we own the sandpit and we own most of the toys.

“It’s now up to us to define how we are going to play the game in that sandpit and how we utilise our very unique property and build on our capability to design and deliver world-class events.

“We definitely see it as creating a vision for the future. It’s our blueprint for the next 20 years.

“It’s our plan to allow us to continue to invest and grow and develop our site, and a plan that will allow us to explore new opportunities.”

Beca has had a hand in designing numerous New Zealand landmarks including Auckland’s Sky Tower, Tauranga’s new harbour bridge, ‘the Rock’  at Wellington Airport and the Hamilton Central City Masterplan.

Richard Douch, manager of Beca in Hamilton, was ‘absolutely rapt’ to have won the design challenge to work with Mystery Creek on the redevelopment of the site. Douch said it was an outcome the whole organisation could be proud of and a chance to raise the profile of the company within Hamilton and all over the world.

Cohen explained the next step was to begin the process of laying out the plan within the calendar year, potentially not building as such but focusing on details. Currently, the winning plan Beca provided was in its early stages and very conceptual rather than detailed plans.

“The next process is to figure out which areas to focus on, what are the main key areas that need to be I guess fast-tracked,” Cohen said

“Obviously, we have to look at what they (Beca) have presented to us and see if there are any changes that need to be made – any things that need to be drawn back. It’s a big process that will continue from now on.”

As a not-for-profit organisation, National Fieldays Society raise their funds internally. Cohen believes it a simple case of having to spend money to lift the standard of Mystery Creek site so it generates an increase in revenue.

In the long run, Mystery Creek want to ensure throughout the redevelopment of the site they maintain their individuality and standout from other events centres across the country.

“We’re really happy to find our own niche and make the most of it and at the moment we’re not making the most of our site.

“It’s a beautiful area, it’s a large site and we’re just not utilising it sufficiently and that is really why this was all brought on.

“We need to make the most of this really large site and to be able to attract the quality world-class business that we would like here – not just here but in Hamilton.”