New home and name for Crossways

Relevant offers

The Wellingtonian

Emergency department admissions soar Vandals target Breaker Bay plaques Poole story sparks heated debate From the wardrobe to The Glory Box Good news for Berhampore kindergarten Mystery man: Who is Garry Poole? Flag war erupts Tsunami siren test planned Have your say on the buses Homegrown fun

Mt Victoria's Crossways community centre has found a new lease on life - literally.

The long-established centre was forced to find new premises after its base for 30 years on the corner of Brougham and Elizabeth streets was sold by its owners, the Presbyterian Church, last month.

Crossways trust made an unsuccessful bid for the two-storey house, which was sold to a local family for about $1.3 million. The trust had embarked on a major fundraising campaign to buy the building. About 40 groups used the house including a creche.

Trust chairperson Bill Southworth says an 11-year lease has been taken out on the first floor of a building at 6 Roxburgh Street and the centre will officially begin operating there on October 16. The trust, which signed the lease late last month, will now be known as the New Crossways Community Trust.

Mr Southworth says the battle to save Crossways has had a positive spin-off; money raised by the campaign will pay for the new centre's lease.

It is expected that most groups from Crossways will eventually be housed in the new centre.

"Our one great regret is that we could not find somewhere with an outdoor play area so that the creche could join us too.  The only possible place to house all of us was the Congregational Church in Cambridge Terrace but the church turned the creche down because it could not agree to the physical alterations the creche required."

However, Housing NZ has agreed to lease a building in Newtown, on a temporary basis, to temporarily house the creche, he says.

Meanwhile, the trust will continue to work through legal issues with Wellington City Council for a lease on the Bandoliers building on the Town Belt, to house the creche.