Letter to the Editor - Northern Advocate 06.09.13
Can we afford not to?
Another way of looking at the Hundertwasser Centre is to
ask, what can it do for our city?
It will deliver a highly recognisable and marketable brand
to Whangarei, with a significant Maori Art Gallery.
It will attract a notable
amount of visitors to the CBD, resulting in millions being added to our GDP.
It will be a catalyst for a 4 star Hotel, one we desperately
need. Last week Whangarei lost 2 major
conferences due to a lack of suitable
accommodation available. We lost over $1 million of revenue to our district.
It will be the main catalyst to attract Cruise ships to our
Port. Cruise NZ has identified that the Hundertwasser Centre would be a great
incentive for them to market our district successfully.
It will be our “unique point of difference”, supporting a
wide range of other products that we can deliver to this Cruise market.
If we do it right, we could match ship visits to Tauranga,
which is worth $36 million per annum.
The cost of the Hundertwasser over our LTP expenditure is
0.6%. The potential upside of economic activity in Whangarei is in the hundreds
of millions of dollars if we manage our opportunities well.
Let’s face it, we have a significant number of social
issues, we have empty shops and businesses suffering.
We have to deal to those challenges. We can - we just need
to be positively positive!
So, can we afford not to do it?
Jeroen Jongejans
WDC Hikurangi/Coastal Ward Councillor
No comments:
Post a Comment