Concrete set to flow at $27.2M Cowes centre

IF YOU’VE ever wondered how the cost of replacing the local community hall could blowout to $27.2 million, you mustn’t have looked over the safety fence at the Cowes Cultural and Community Centre (CCCC) lately.

Ahead of the massive concrete pour, which starts next week, the complexity of the underfloor preparations, including heating, power, plumbing, IT and all the other services, has frankly gobsmacked even the workers involved in the build.

That’s where a big slab of the costs exists, quite literally, and by later next week, much of that will be invisible under a whopping 750 metres of concrete.

The big pour started in a small way on Friday, June 3, when a few agitators rolled on to the site and the first of the concrete was poured into place with the aid of a long-arm concrete pump.

The task will be repeated hundreds of times over the next few weeks as a major part of the project, led by principal construction contractors MCCORKELL Constructions of Richmond, and implemented by big team of tradesmen and laborers, is completed.

There’s still much to do after that, on a tight project timeline, if the centre is to be opened later in 2023.

Features of the new Cowes Cultural and Community Centre will include: Library, Museum, Visitor Information, Theatre, Café/Box Office, Function/Meeting Rooms, Gallery, Grand Hall, Community Kitchen, Genealogy and Historical Society.

Despite the use of conventional building methods, the centre was designed, built and certified to Passivhaus Standards, according to the shire, “making it the most environmentally significant building in the region”.