Work Steaming Along At Hawthorndale Care Village

Site construction work at the Hawthorndale Care Village is cracking along at pace.

The Hawthorndale Care Village Board Chair, Frank O’Boyle, said the detailed design work had been completed, the site civil works are all but finished, and the building will begin in earnest this month.

“We’re delighted to be able to announce that consent has been granted. Getting us to this point has been a long journey, and the team has worked tirelessly to complete everything required. This is one of those milestones that bring us closer to bringing to life our vision for the elderly and people with dementia.”

The village, expected to open in mid-2025, is an aged care facility inspired by the world- leading Dutch dementia village, De Hogeweyk. It will follow a social rather than a traditional medical/institutional model of care, allowing residents to live as normal a life as possible, exercising choice over their daily lives in a safe environment.

At an on-site media briefing  construction project manager Nick Hamlin said that about $5 million has already been spent on site development work.

Standing on site we could certainly see how what was the old Hawthorndale School site to this amazing development is starting to take shape.

The project is going to schedule but added that they could’ve done without the recent rains.

He says all the consents have been granted and three local firms have been awarded contracts to do the building work.

Henderson Construction have a $6m contract – Bennett Homes have a $3m contract and Amalgamated Builders have a $13m contract. Staff from the three firms are now onsite.

The Hawthorndale project is expected to generate 300 jobs during its construction phase and, once open, create 11 new jobs and retain 87 job positions from the Calvary Hospital transition.

Margaret Brown, Manager for Calvary Hospital Southland, said she was delighted that all the hard work was paying off. “The Board have been on this journey for many years now, and with the building consent granted and building contracts awarded, its full steam ahead.”

He says they will be building more bathrooms and bedrooms than the recently completed Langlands Hotel.

The new facility at the top of Tay Street is expected to be open by end of March 2025.