About the project
This bold new venue will be the Capital’s largest built infrastructure investment since the Wellington Regional Stadium two decades ago, offering a powerful combination of facilities across three floors and 18,000 sqm that draw visitors to Wellington to learn, meet and be inspired. Tākina Wellington Convention and Exhibition Centre (Tākina) will be the Capital’s first premium event space delivering two key elements to Wellington’s economic infrastructure.
A place to share
The top two floors will deliver the Capital's first premium space to host meetings and conventions with over 10,000sqm of flexible meeting and exhibition space. This will be a space where Wellington can showcase the breadth and depth of expertise and thought leadership on offer in the Capital, hosting events, and building new ones for carefully targeted audiences that fit with Wellington’s Capital City status.
A place to inspire
The ground floor will include a 1,280sqm Exhibition Gallery that will be the largest in NZ. The Gallery will attract locals and visitors to see the global entertaining and inspiring exhibitions that will be on show. Locally developed and curated exhibitions will be premiered here before touring offshore - exhibitions that showcase the creative talents of Wellington and New Zealand.
Conventions
Wellington has been a successful convention destination for many years but at the same time has been hampered by the lack of high-quality venues. Post pandemic conferences both domestic and international are back up and running; the centre is designed for meeting the needs of national, Australasian, and specialist international market. Wellington wants to remain competitive in this business events market and Tākina provides a venue to allow that.
Benefit to the area
Being built on a Council-owned site on Cable Street, opposite Te Papa Tongarewa and near the waterfront, the centre will be a great addition to this vibrant cultural and entertainment precinct. Tākina offers this part of the city a transformative opportunity. We expect that the increased visitors to the area will encourage private development and enhancement of the surrounding area and the waterfront that will support and strengthen the areas’ economic vitality and associated economic benefits.
The base isolated and sustainable 5-Green Star centre is due to be completed in 2023. It will have huge positive flow-on effects for the City’s hospitality, accommodation and retail businesses and is expected to supply 372 jobs and bring in and protect business worth around $45 million a year in GDP to Wellington's economy.
Visit the Tākina Convention Centre website for further information about the centre, its design, how the project is progressing, its facilities, and how to book
Visit Tākina website
Where are we up to
Despite the delay due to COVID-19, the centre remains on track to be completed in mid 2023 and is well placed to support the recovery in the business events and domestic tourism which will in turn be a welcome boost for the City.
The project started in December 2019 and the foundation and piling work was completed May 2020. Between May 2020 to September 2021 the main structure was completed.
By May 2022 the façade was in place and the fit-out is happening now and will be completed by late February 2023.
We’ve been recording the progress of the work being done on Tākina.
October 2022 update: