The reinstallation of the Cathedral of the Church of Christ is progressing; updated costs to be published next month

Work to reestablish the Christ Church Cathedral is already underway, but it could be eight years before it reopens.

The cathedral was damaged in the September 2010 earthquake and reopened shortly thereafter. However, the February 2011 earthquake devastated the building.

The cathedral lay in ruins for years while a decision was made on what to do with it. In 2017, the Synod voted, by a narrow majority, to restore the building. This came after the then national government offered a cash contribution of $ 10 million and a loan of $ 15 million; the Christchurch City Council also promised a $ 10 million grant.

The building had long been a symbol of the lack of progress in rebuilding the city, but now, more than 10 years after the first earthquake, work was well underway on the site, overseen by the Christ Church Cathedral Reinstatement Trust .

Project manager Keith Paterson took the Herald on a tour of the cathedral site to see what work was being done.

Much of that work involved stabilizing the structure.

At the front of the building, the west wall, wooden reinforcements had been placed. That wall, including its large rose window, collapsed after the earthquakes. Siding wood had also been installed in preparation for the permanent stabilization frames.

In the southwest transept, the first part of the stabilization work was underway.

That involved creating heavy foundations to support the steel frames that would reach up to the top of the transept.

Then long steel bars would be drilled into the wall to connect the frames to the building; Core samples were taken from the wall to check for voids.

The holes in the building would also be waterproofed.

On the other side of the building, similar work was being completed, with large foundations in place to support a structure that would hold onto the building.

Paterson said the building also needed to be cleared of vermin.

“We have a problem with pigeons.

“Unfortunately, they have inhabited the building for the past eight years and contaminated it.”

Pigeons weren’t the only natural invasion that had to be dealt with: parts of the roof had collapsed on the north side of the building, resulting in “an internal garden.”

Apart from stabilization work, efforts were being made to preserve the heritage of the building, including its contents.

Heritage professional and lay canon of the cathedral, Jenny May, was able to enter parts of the building together with Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) in the weeks after the earthquake to retrieve some items.

“All our silver chalices … our processional crosses, the bishop’s crozier … things that were very important to the church,” he said.

But there was much left.

“There is a wide variety of material that is there, there is also a large amount of material whose condition we do not know because USAR moved a lot of debris on the ship when they made sure that no one had been killed or trapped.

Part of May’s job was to ensure that items found at this stage of the reinstatement were carefully removed, recorded and stored.

He said there had been some “incredible” finds along the way, including pieces from the intricate rose window that stood on the west wall.

“I was standing with the stonemason … he was checking a pile, I was checking another, he picked up a piece and said ‘look at this’ and I said ‘I think I found the other half of this’ … he handed it to me and we put them together and we had a whole face, ”he said.

There was still a big question mark about how much the project would cost. An estimate in 2017 was around $ 104 million, made up of church insurance money, Crown and council contributions, grants, and fundraising efforts.

The former Anglican bishop, Victoria Matthews, initially wanted to demolish it and build a replacement, at the time said there were much bigger concerns facing the church, including child poverty and climate change.

The final cost was expected to be more than $ 104 million, and while Paterson did not say what the updated cost figures were, it said the information would be released next month.

He said it was also not possible to set a firm time frame on how long the job would take.

“The nature of the work is artisanal and not a conventional construction. As a result, one thing must be done before the next and that is why it is a bit tricky to predict exactly how long it will take … but my best estimate is about 7-8 years.

“Right now, sitting here in the square is a symbol of a lack of progress; what we can see is that progress has begun.”