Parakiore Recreation and Sport Centre

Parakiore Recreation and Sport Centre, formerly known as the Metro Sports Facility, is a sport facility in Christchurch Central City, New Zealand, that has been under construction since 2018. It was announced in 2012 as part of the Christchurch Central Recovery Plan, which was a plan to recover the central city after the devastating 2010 Canterbury and 2011 Christchurch earthquakes occurred.
The facility will be 32,000 square metres (340,000 sq ft). It will have a 10-lane 50-metre-long competition pool with spacec for 1,000 people to watch. It is expected to be the first 50-metre pool in Christchurch since the Queen Elizabeth II Park stadium was demolished after the earthquakes. The pool itself will actually be 51.5 metres, but includes a 1.5-metre-long bulkhead that can be moved to change the size of the pool, and also split the pool into two 25-metre pools. The facility will also include a diving pool, five hydroslides and seats for 2,500 people, a pool for learning how to swim, a room for birthday parties, a gym, a café, a sauna, approximately 550 parking spaces and three courts.
The hydroslides were designed to look like eels in an eel pot. They are made of fibreglass and have heights that range from 9 to 12 metres. One of the slides, named the Looping Rocket, has a trapdoor, which was reported in 2019 to be the first trapdoor waterslide in New Zealand. People stand on it and then it opens and drops people down the slide at 40 kilometres per hour. There will also be a 125-metre slide named the Sphere Slide, which people use rafts to go down and has a big ball which causes riders to spin around as they go into it, and riders go down the rest of the slide.
It will have an "aquatic sensory experience" designed for people with disabilities. It wil include a pool with a gradual slope so that people can enter it similarly to how they would at a beach, as well as water features and a tactile wall to provide sensory stimulation.
The centre, originally named the Metro Sports Facility, was announced in 2012 as part of the Christchurch Central Recovery Plan, which was a plan to recover the Christchurch Central City after the devastating 2010 Canterbury and 2011 Christchurch earthquakes occurred. The indicative project delivery schedule published in the Christchurch Central Recovery Plan published in mid-2012 aimed for completion in the first quarter of 2016. In the publication Anchor Projects Overview published by CERA in June 2014, the completion date had been revised to end of 2017. This was further revised to 2021. The build is being managed the Crown-owned rebuild company Ōtākaro Limited, and is being built by the Australian company CPB Contractors. The Christchurch City Council will own and operate it, and will give a maximum of $148 million to it for the build.
After Ōtākaro and the Australian company CPB contractors, who was also working on Te Pae Christchurch Convention Centre and a building for Christchurch Hospital, went into final negotiations in February 2019, it was decided in May that CPB would build the sport centre. The contract with CPB was worth $221 million and another $80 million had been allocated for the project.
In November 2017, after the costs went $75 million over budget, the deal with the contractor Leighs Cockram Joint Venture—a joint venture between Leighs Construction and Cockram Construction—was cancelled, and Ōtākaro was told to design the rest of the facility.
In April 2018 the government announced a redesign of the facility due to the increased costs. At the time Greater Christchurch Regeneration Minister Megan Woods said that this redesign had decreased the cost by an estimated $50 million. The changes announced were getting rid of a childcare centre and an outdoor sports area, changing materials, decreasing the sizes of windows and skylights, removing a canopy at the south entrance, and reducing the size of a car park but without decreasing the amount of parking spaces. The construction of the facility started with groundwork in August 2018. Roof trusses started being put up in October 2020.
After delays caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the expected opening date was shifted in November 2021 to early 2023. The pandemic prevented workers from working on the project from late March to late April. When workers came back restrictions caused them to slow down, and the pandemic also caused problems with sourcing materials from abroad. In late 2021 the government allocated another $16 million to the project after the costs increased.
Until 2021 the centre was known as the Metro Sports Facility. In April 2021 it was renamed to Parakiore Recreation and Sport Centre after Ngāi Tūāhuriri, a hapū of Ngāi Tahu, chose the name Parakiore, in honour of the youngest son of Tūrākautahi, the builder of Kaiapoi Pā.
In March 2023 it was reported that a dewatering well had removed sand and soil from the ground when it was not supposed to, which caused an area of 10 square metres to sink by an average of 90 centimetres, further delaying the project by what was estimated as five months at the time. There were rumours that the project stopped because of sinking pools, but a spokesperson said that this was false: the pools were not sinking, and the construction did not stop.
In January 2023 CPB Contractors requested for another $212 million for the build. However, CPB and Ōtākaro were in a fixed-price contract and Ōtākaro did not agree to the give the extra money. As a result, CPB initiated legal proceedings in order to either "suspend or terminate" the contract at the High Court, but the court ruled against it. In April 2023 the sub-contractor Benmax went into liquidation.
As of November 2024, the sport centre is expected to be opened in late 2025.