In 2019, the university announced it would redevelop the 4ha property in Woolshed Bay, donated by Remarkables Station owners Jillian and Dick Jardine three years earlier, into a 65-person capacity facility called Hākitekura.
Now, just over two years since the university’s council put the project on ice because of financial constraints, it is back under way.
Deputy vice-chancellor Prof Jessica Palmer said it formally restarted the project in March last year.
The shearers’ quarters have been demolished to make way for more outdoor green space, and a new access road has been completed.
The first stage of construction for the $13.27 million project — the redevelopment of the historic woolshed house and building a manager’s house and ancillary buildings — is expected to start by the end of the year, and take about 12 months to complete.
Meanwhile, it has been "sympathetically developing" the property, maintaining the Jardines’ former home in a converted woolshed, gardens and native planting.
The university also began advertising for a live-in manager last month, for which applications closed last Sunday.
The ad said the manager would play a key role in the "operational stand-up and launch" of the facility, then work as its on-site manager in a house that will be ready to move into next July.
Prof Palmer said Hākitekura would be a key part of the wider presence the university is planning to establish in Queenstown, providing a "unique gathering place for academics and researchers, thought leaders, and the local community".
The facility will host small-scale academic and non-academic activities, including retreats, symposia, conferences and external commercial events that "align with the university’s teaching, research and administrative goals".
Although an opening date was yet to be set, a programme of events would be planned over the course of next year ahead of its opening, she said.
