by ROWENA OREJANA
The owner of one of Wellington’s most iconic buildings, St Gerard’s Church and Monastery, is looking at the possibility that it may not need to raise $10 million after all.
The organisation that owned the complex had thought that $10 million was needed to bring the property up to the 34 per cent new building standard.
The Institute for World Evangelisation — ICPE New Zealand — said it believed the building had been set apart for God since 1909, said Gordon Copeland, the chairman of the St Gerard’s Maintenance and Restoration Trust.
“Under the initial examination that was done, it was going to cost us $10 million to bring the Church monastery up to the code. And that is, of course, a colossal amount of money.
“Like most Catholic organisations, ICPEs survive on donations from Christ’s faithful. We were almost going to need a miracle for us to raise that $10 million,” he said.
New information, however, came to light that may mean the monastery is stronger than was first deemed.
The Wellington City Council yellow-stickered the church and the monastery three years ago. It said the church came up to only 26 per cent of the code and the monastery to only 18 per cent. The church was built in 1909 and the monastery was built in 1932.
Mr Copeland said he came across new information when an engineer friend from Christchurch stayed at Mr Copeland’s home in Wellington.
“What actually happened was a Christchurch-based engineer who is a Catholic, he came to Wellington with his wife to stay in our home to go to a funeral. He came to Mass with us in
St Gerard’s and took a great interest in the property because it’s Wellington’s most iconic building,” he said.
When Mr Copeland told the Christchurch engineer what had happened, the engineer told Mr Copeland about the High St Post Office, which was built in 1932, the same year the monastery was built.
The High St Post Office, built after the deadly Napier earthquake in 1931, was built with reinforced concrete to make it earthquake proof. It is one of the few buildings that was left
unscathed in the recent Christchurch earthquakes.
After the Napier earthquake in 1931, the monastery’s foundation was built with reinforced concrete, in the same manner that the High St Post Office was built.
“With that information, we then started talking to other engineers about it and they said they think the initial assessment has got it wrong, that the building is much stronger than we expect,” explained Mr Copeland.
Mr Copeland said the monastery has the added advantage of having been built on rock.
“So there are a lot of factors now indicating the monastery is already over the code and therefore we don’t have to do anything in terms of earthquake strengthening,” he said.
With this possibility in mind, Mr Copeland said the trust is putting all fundraising on hold until an engineering reassessment is done on the property.
“It’s a whole new ballgame, really. We just have to wait,” he said.
They wanted to keep the cost down as much as possible, “but we are legally and morally obliged to bring it up to code. So, we can’t raise hopes too much until the engineers have finished their work,” he said.
Mr Copeland said they are in early stages of getting the monastery reassessed.
The ICPE is a lay-led missionary organisation that has canonical recognition by the Catholic Church. The trust, on the other hand, is a secular organisation that wants to save the iconic complex.
Damn good show !!