Deputy Mayor: Lewers' statement on $60m Project Manawa "simply not true."

One key part of the Crux mayoral candidates’ debate, published on Friday, was a claim from Mayor Glyn Lewers that the controversial $60 million Queenstown CBD council HQ and civic centre – Project Manawa – was “gone.”

The mayor said in the debate, defending a question around the deferral of key capital projects: “We've cut a lot of things. Look, you won't see Project Manawa in the LTP at all. It's gone.”

But in a social media post deputy mayor Quentin Smith has challenged Mayor Lewers saying the statement is not true.

“It simply is not true that Glyn has removed Project Manawa from the LTP (Long Term Plan). It remains in the LTP and councillors, with the mayor not supporting it (the decision) had requested a review of the location options. I don’t usually weigh in on the comments of others, but this is simply not true.”

Source: Deputy Mayor Quentin Smith, Facebook, September 13.

It does appear that Project Manawa (Stage 1) does still sit in the Long Term Plan at a total of $60,659,000 between 2028 and 2032.

Crux is not aware of any mechanism where the QLDC Mayor could unilaterally decided that a $60 million project is just “gone” and we are not aware of any recorded meetings or minutes to back this up.

Mayor Lewers has provided the following response to Crux:

“Manawa has always been a project about the full development of the the Stanley Street precinct including a proposed arts center , community hall, library, commercial opportunities at each end as well as Project Connect.”

“The full scope was removed from the LTP. You only have to compare the last LTP with this one to see that.”

“Project Connect is the council office proposal that has $60M set aside. The decision for location is yet to be made.”

“The naming of these projects have been around for the last 10 years.”