Work will start on March 2 and should take about four weeks to complete - meaning the ground will be out of action until April.
Dunedin City Council sports field facilities officer Nick McGuire said the new track, and a new water jump and long jump run-up, would cost about $500,000.
Tenders for the work opened on Monday and close on November 28. A specialist Australian or European company, with the help of New Zealand contractors, is expected to earn the rights to the job.
The work was originally going to be completed before Christmas but was pushed back, as the Colgate Games are scheduled to be held at the ground in January.
With optimum conditions needed to lay the new all-weather Mondo track, March was the best time to do the work, McGuire said.
''The issue is, we need about 10-12 days of 15degC days in a row for it to dry and it can't get too hot and it can't get too cold in that period. We earmarked that time of year due to previous weather conditions. It's all we had to go off.''
The 15-year-old track, which had a minimum lifespan of about 10 years, was originally ''earmarked'' to be replaced in 2009, but instead it was resurfaced.
With the track showing obvious signs of wear and tear in the inside lanes near the finish line, the track was ''absolutely'' in need of an overhaul, McGuire said.
''You could stretch it out again, but when you have a set depreciation budget set for it [the work], the longer you stretch it out, that budget doesn't tend to increase a hell of a lot. It only gets more and more expensive. It's not going to be cheaper than it is right now to do.
''Athletics tracks depreciate over time, so it was always going to be replaced at some point. It's just the nature of artificial surfaces.''
Once the new track is laid, an international athletics representative from Brisbane will re-survey the track to ensure it is accredited.
While work on the track means the Otago-Southland and South Island secondary schools championships will now be hosted in Invercargill and Nelson respectively, Athletics Otago administrator Margaret Knox said the ground would still host plenty of action in the future.
She hopes the Caledonian will host the national championships in 2016, the national secondary schools championships in 2017 and the Oceania masters championships in 2018.
Dunedin had the first all-weather track in New Zealand when it was opened at the old Caledonian Ground in 1962.
The track was shifted to Logan Park in 1999 and the first track season there was in 1999-2000.
-by Robert Van Royen
