$6m grant for polytech campus

A tertiary Education Commission grant of nearly $6 million will enable the Otago Polytechnic finally to achieve its vision of a single, united campus in Dunedin.

Tertiary Education Minister Pete Hodgson announced yesterday the polytechnic would receive $5,985,000 to enable it to centralise more of its education and training on its main Dunedin campus.

Mr Hodgson, who is also the Dunedin North MP, said the consolidation would help the polytechnic ‘‘move to a more sustainable way of operating''.

The funding will be used to relocate the polytechnic's Catering and Hospitality School from its premises, in Tennyson St, to the main campus in Forth St, and also to consolidate the Art School by building a new annex.

The hospitality facilities will be incorporated in an expanded and revamped Student Centre complex in Harbour Tce. And the new twin-level Art School annex will be added, next to and linked with, the school's Block P, near Anzac Ave.

Polytechnic officials said yesterday the funding move was a major vote of confidence in the polytechnic's future.

The funding decision also draws a line under an unhappier period in the polytechnic's history, when, under former chief executive Dr Wanda Korndorffer, who resigned in 2002, a previous ‘‘one-campus'' project ran $2.5 million over budget yet still failed to bring all the polytechnic's Dunedin facilities together.

‘‘The polytechnic is delighted that the Government has shown its support and commitment to Otago Polytechnic,'' chief executive Phil Ker said yesterday.

The planned relocation of the hospitality grouping would allow teaching and learning to be integrated into the running of the Student Centre, Mr Ker said.

The award-winning student-training Mellor restaurant would also be relocated into a new purpose-built facility within the Student Centre, from the current Crown-owned premises in Tennyson St, officials said.

The polytechnic Art School had, in 1878, been the first art school to be established in the country and it had since become ‘‘an icon in New Zealand art education'', Mr Ker said.

It is envisaged that the polytechnic building programme will start by August and will be completed by June next year.

Polytechnic officials said the funding would also strengthen the institution by making possible annual savings of some $420,000, resulting from reduced leasing and energy costs, and other efficiencies.