Nine months of repairs to the roof of Dunedin's Dominican Priory are drawing to a close, with the heritage building's bell tower now refurbished and back in place.
Replacing the Welsh slate tiles on the 140-year-old priory, a heritage category 1 building beside St Joseph's Cathedral, began last year.
The priory was built as a convent and school and was later used to house refugees before falling into disuse in the early 2000s.
Numerous holes in the roof had resulted in water damage to some of the building's 70 rooms.
Stewart Construction lifted the steel and fibreglass bell tower back on to the building about noon yesterday after it had been taken away for repairs.
Company managing director David Grant said scaffolding would start to come down in about three weeks and he was pleased to have been able to work on a building that was ''unique to Dunedin city''.
Dunedin Catholic Diocese Bishop-elect Fr Michael Dooley said he hoped the next step would be for the diocese to try to attract interest in the building from people willing to work with the church to preserve the priory.
Mr Grant said the interior of the building still required work, but Stewart Construction had finished making the building weather-tight.
''It's certainly been an interesting project,'' he said.
''It's quite a unique project in regards to where the slates have been sourced from.''
Fifty grants were awarded for the repair work to the priory, including one for $95,000 from the Otago Community Trust, given at the beginning of 2017.
Together they totalled nearly $600,000.
Fr Dooley said the building was originally a convent and school for the Dominican Sisters and had beautiful views.
It would possibly lend itself to apartments or other accommodation, he said.
Fr Dooley said the diocese did not have any plans to sell the building at this stage, but definitely wanted to see it used and preserved.
''We are happy to work with someone.
''It's a case of getting people that have an interest in the building to do that.''
The building had been in a state of ''gross disrepair'' and it was good to see work being done on it, Fr Dooley said.
Occasionally it had been used as a meeting room by the diocese, he said.
