CBAY receives engineering commendations in New Zealand awards

Timaru District Council's Caroline Bay Trust Aoraki Centre (CBay) has received honours and mentions in two New Zealand engineering and design awards.

The aquatic, fitness and recreation centre on the South Island's east coast, received the merit award in the group tourism and leisure category in the Property Council of New Zealand's property awards, and then was commended in the Ingenium Excellence in Engineering Awards.

The complex received the Property Council distinction against competition as tough as the new Christchurch international airport terminal, which won the award, but judges said CBay had that "extra special factor in the final product."

And judges of the Ingenium award said "CBay was a very worthy candidate for its top award."

That award was won by the Caversham Highway Rebuild Project, a revamped multi-lane arterial route through the city of Dunedin.

The Ingenium award is for excellence in engineering and CBay's entry was in Category 1, for projects of greater cost than $10 million.

Judges looked for a level of excellence beyond what would be accepted as a competently-executed project - stating that "excellence is not routine work done well."

Criteria included a measure of the technical complexity of the project; how well public consultation and/or stakeholder consultation was handled; a measure of how well the project impacted on the environment; the social and cultural consequences; adherence to budgets and timelines, and a measure of the level of innovation and creativity applied to resolving the issues presented by the project.

Timaru District Council Group Manager District Services Ashley Harper said he was delighted that a comparatively small public facility in a district of just 42,000 people should be accorded such high national distinctions.

Harper explained "we consider it a huge honour against that sort of competition to gain a merit award and be mentioned by engineering experts as having produced a remarkable facility.

"We see reaching the finals of both awards as recognition of CBay's excellence across several levels including environmental, sustainability, energy and operational efficiency and provision of excellence in service to the community."

CBay features a 10-lane lap pool; programme and learn-to-swim pools; heated therapeutic water for the elderly and those recovering from illness and injury, and waterslides and a fun park for children. A 50-metre outdoor pool also received wide use during the summer, now giving way to indoor swimming during the winter months.

In his entry to the Ingenium judges, Harper said the $23.5 million facility stood as testimony to a community's will, a district council's resolve, professional design talent and effective fundraising to deliver excellence in civil engineering and construction technologies.

Harper added "the project delivered a collective approach to provide for the health, fitness and recreation of a population that spanned wide demographics in age and physical ability."

After almost a year of operation the complex is exceeding council daily usage projections and is on target to exceed 280,000 visitors for the year.

CBay was featured in the March/April 2013 issue of Australasian Leisure Management.

Image shows the opening of the Caroline Bay Trust Aoraki Centre in August last year.

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