| BUILDINGS & FACILITIES |
YEAR: 1990
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Addington Raceway's new Stewards' stand is finished. The stand was completed right on schedule - in time for this weekend's Easter Saturday meeting. The occasion will be marked by a short ceremony in the birdcage following race 2. Mr Jack Bennett, Chairman of the NZ Racing Authority, will offically open the complex.
"We have run on a bit of a wing and a prayer at the last minute with the hitches and little things left to do," says Addington's Chief Executive Officer, Mr Mike Godber. "But it's marvellous because the builders said they would be finished by Easter and they have," he said.
The stand was in use for the first two nights of the Easter Carnival last week, and Mr Godber says the general feedback has been tremendous. People have asked why we made each each floor so big and not divided it up. That's because we didn't want to make it into a rabbit warren; we can easily partition off separate areas if we need to," he said.
The new stand has stand $7.6m, which includes all inside furnishings and the building's exterior improvements. Over $250,000 worth of carpet (2500mē) is laid throughout throughout the building, which also contains 800 chairs, 120 settees, 140 tables and 26 coffee tables worth the same amount. Nearly 50 video monitors are dotted throughout the four levels of the complex, and nine bars accommodate the thirsty patron's needs.
At ground level there is the Stipendiary Stewards room and waiting area, fees room, secretary's office, first aid room, a driver's room as well as separate areas for interviews and light meals. "The new birdcage is a third bigger than the old one, which brings the horses closer to the public in the main stand. The public area next to the birdcage is terraced so more people can see what is going on," Mr Godber said.
Over 500 seats flank the Lindores (first) floor, which includes a separate area for trainers and drivers to watch the races. Mr Godber says that each level will accommodate up to 600 people, which means that at a major meeting like Cup Day, over 2000 people could be comfortably in the building at one time. The second floor - Silks - is also for members. The difference between these two floors is the completely glassed front on the latter.
On both nights of racing last week, people experienced difficulty with reflections of lights and the video monitors when looking out onto the track. "It's a fact of life that any glassed-in area will have reflections from inside the building. There is no glass that won't reflect under the circumstances," he said. The third floor houses the Presidents Room, as well as his guests, the stewards, their guests, and sponsors.
In regards to the "relatively unused" areas around the escalators, Mr Godber stated that they are intended to give people room to move. "On the administration floor, people tend to mill around and we had to make that area big enough to allow for that. We made the other floors just as big because it would have looked silly otherwise. But they are also areas where people can get out of the hustle and bustle for a quiet sit down. Depending on the public reaction we have the option of installing totalisator and monitors out there as well," he said.
Coinciding with the opening of the stand is a new indicator board inside the track, the technology for which was developed by the TAB. "It is 100% better. The numbers that appear are made up of metallic strips painted with flourescent paint; the whole unit cost around $80,000. The possibilty of us having another board displaying sectional times is in the pipeline. He added that there was a possibility of having a counter running on all the monitor screens, similar to that seen during sporting events on television.
Credit: John Robinson writing in HRWeekly 11Apr90