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Civic

Churches, community facilities, sporting clubs and council buildings

Church, community and sporting projects often come with two particular challenges: decisions are made by a committee, and the building may need to keep operating while the work is underway. We plan the work around those requirements, with clear communication, practical staging and a focus on keeping the building safe and usable throughout the project.

Holy Trinity Church, Avonside
Holy Trinity Church, Avonside

What we build

  • Strengthening options
  • Interior fit-outs
  • New builds
  • Additions
  • Alterations, partial or full refurbishments

You may need to take the recommendation to a committee

The person researching a builder is often not the person who makes the final decision. A property convenor, churchwarden or club committee member may need to take a recommendation to people who have never met the builder. That means you need clear information that can be shared with the people involved in the decision.

Anglican parishes
For Anglican parishes, building projects and faculties submissions require approval from the relevant church representatives. Larger projects may also require Diocesan Standing Committee and Diocesan Trust Board approval.
Methodist parishes
Property decisions require the approval of the Parish Council, the congregation and Synod, or, where the property is held in trust, the Methodist Connexional Property Committee.
Clubs and community bodies
Club and community projects are often managed by volunteer committees. The people making the decision may be relying on someone else's research and need clear information they can take to a meeting.
Four bronze bells standing on plywood pads on the patterned green carpet of a church interior, one of them still bolted to a black steel headstock, with circular galvanised steel wheel frames laid out flat across the floor around them, stacking chairs pushed back to the walls, and an altar table with a brass standing cross and candles beyond

Clear information for your committee

We provide clear project information and references so the people involved can understand who RPC is, what we have built and how we approach the work.

Sunday kept happening

St Albans Baptist Church is a great example of this in motion.

St Albans Baptist Church was extensively damaged in the earthquakes and needed considerable remedial ground works, including a 2.2-metre-deep gravel raft and dewatering, all inside the existing structure. Two concrete panels were removed from the exterior walls to get the machinery in and reinstated once the ground remediation was finished. The building was handed over on programme and at 100% of the New Building Code.

Through all of it the church kept meeting. The elders were involved from the outset and the congregation was kept informed as the work went on. At various stages RPC organised a safe path so the Sunday congregation could walk through the auditorium, look at what was happening and ask questions.

A large auditorium with banked rows of blue upholstered seats facing a dark stage, a lighting truss suspended above and a drum kit and keyboard set up under the house lights
Read the St Albans project
“We at St Albans Baptist Church have used RPC Construction twice in the last 10 years, firstly on a very large new build addition to our church facility and then 3 years later on a complete reconstruction of our 500 seat auditorium following earthquakes, and I cannot recommend them highly enough. We did not know RPC before hand, but went on someone else's recommendation and we are 100% glad that we did so.”
John Alpe, Senior Pastor, St Albans Baptist Church

The club kept trading

Rangiora RSA involved a complete refit, including new services, an outdoor bar and dining area, a significant extension to the sports bar, and extensive strengthening of the existing structure.

The project was broken into two stages so the RSA could keep trading in one area while the construction team worked in the other. Fortnightly site meetings involving the client, consultants and building team helped deal with issues as they came up.

The project won Silver in the New Zealand Commercial Project Awards, Retail Section, 2019.

A club dining room with round timber tables and green and grey upholstered chairs on patterned carpet, honour boards along one wall and a frieze of squadron badges near the ceiling
“RSA Rangiora chose RPC after careful consideration and as they were highly recommended to us. Our project presented a number of unexpected problems that should have had a major impact on our operational ability and timeline, however with the professionalism of RPC, we enjoyed continued operation of our club and also completion on time. I can thoroughly recommend this company for its professional approach and high level of quality workmanship.”
Ross Ditmer QSM, Rangiora RSA Club

Heritage buildings

Heritage work is its own discipline. The constraints come from the building's fabric and its protection as much as from the brief, and the people who care about the outcome are not only the ones paying for it.

RPC worked on the Holy Trinity Church in Avonside and also redeveloped the Old Rangiora Post Office, a heritage building brought back into use as four tenancies alongside extensive seismic strengthening.

A new galvanised steel channel being manoeuvred against the basalt and limestone wall of a church tower, beside a stone-traceried opening with its timber louvre partly removedA large bronze bell hanging in a timber headstock and wheel inside a whitewashed brick bell tower, with a rope dropping to the bare boarded floor below and louvred openings either side

Church and civic projects

These projects show the range of church, community and civic work RPC has carried out, including heritage work, earthquake strengthening and projects completed while buildings remained in use.

Questions committees ask

Can services or trading continue while the work is on?
On the projects of this kind documented here, they did. St Albans Baptist Church continued to hold services and continued to hire out the meeting rooms adjoining the auditorium, so the income did not stop during the rebuild. Rangiora RSA kept trading in one area while the team worked in the other. Neither happened by accident; both were designed into the programme before work started, which is why it needs raising at the first meeting rather than the fourth.
Can the work be done in stages?
Yes, and for a church or club it is usually the whole answer. Rangiora RSA was broken into two stages. Hamptons ITM on Ferry Road, a commercial job with the same problem, was broken into two stages so the business never stopped trading. RPC can look at staged work so that you don’t even have to move premises.
Can we speak to another church or club RPC has built for?
Among the testimonials published on this site are exactly those buyers: John Alpe, Senior Pastor at St Albans Baptist Church, who engaged RPC twice in ten years, and Ross Ditmer QSM of the Rangiora RSA Club. Both are reproduced in full at /testimonials. If your committee wants referees it can telephone rather than quotations it can read, ask for them when you go to tender.
What does the approval and consent path look like?
Yours will depend on your denomination or your constitution, and it is usually longer than the building work. An Anglican parish is directed to its archdeacon in the first instance, with a submission signed by the vicar or priest, the vestry chair or representative and the churchwardens; larger projects also need Diocesan Standing Committee and Diocesan Trust Board approval. Methodist property decisions need the Parish Council, the congregation and Synod, or the Connexional Property Committee where the property is held in trust. On the building side, RPC arranges the final sign-off of all work on site and of contractors, and obtains council approval.
Ask us a question

Tell us what the building has to keep doing.

Services, trading hours, term dates, hall bookings. Tell us what cannot stop and we will tell you how the work gets staged around it.

Request a quote03 384 6073