Christchurch Metro Sports site - so how will the ground on this site be 'remediated'? It looks difficult, see photos!

Forums › Sports › Christchurch Metro Sports site - so how will the ground on this site be 'remediated'? It looks difficult, see photos!

amiga500

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#215082 11-Jun-2017 19:47

Well, construction on the Metro Sports Centre is scheduled to start by mid 2017 or quarter two, depending on which article or official placard you read.

Looking through the fence today I saw big piles of top soil covered with plastic & some large and small ponds. Presumably the piles of topsoil are from the cleanup of contaminated soil after the demolition of buildings found to have asbestos. No sign of any building work yet. The soil seems to have come from the area where the two large ponds are.

The photos show some small and large ponds. The brewery was built there to take advantage of the the natural springs or so Grizz Wylie said in the tv ads.

In the 2011 earthquake some buildings with cracked floor slabs were said to have had water bubbling up through the cracks. All this information can be found quite easily in the comments made on the Stuff.co.nz articles about the delays to the project.

So my question is how will the ground be remediated & how long will it take? I will try to upload some photos.

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#1798165 11-Jun-2017 20:06

Building a jet sprint course?

amiga500

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#1798170 11-Jun-2017 20:12

I should add that Christchurch has not had a lot of rain in the last two weeks. A few mm here and there. So to me it looks like those natural springs might be bubbling away under most of the site...

msukiwi

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#1798171 11-Jun-2017 20:13

Isn't it meant to have a pool or two in the new Centre.

Fred99

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#1798172 11-Jun-2017 20:13

That's rainwater - not groundwater/water table related. It's been wet in Chch for the past weeks - beautiful weekend now.

If you don't like the project - that's one thing.

Arguing that there's some reason it's flawed technically - when all the evidence I've seen of what's going on with the major anchor projects in Chch indicates that they're so cautious to ensure that they've covered everything - it's not a winning argument.

amiga500

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#1798177 11-Jun-2017 20:32

Fred99:

That's rainwater - not groundwater/water table related. It's been wet in Chch for the past weeks - beautiful weekend now.

If you don't like the project - that's one thing.

Arguing that there's some reason it's flawed technically - when all the evidence I've seen of what's going on with the major anchor projects in Chch indicates that they're so cautious to ensure that they've covered everything - it's not a winning argument.

You may well be right. However, the 2nd photo looks awfully like the areas near the Travis Wetlands that slumped. This Metro site looks a lot wetter than other bare building sites around the central city. Let's see if the ponds dry up with some better weather!

Fred99

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#1798311 12-Jun-2017 09:16

This PDF includes pre/post levels measured by LIDAR. Not very high resolution - but you can see the area and it doesn't look like levels shifted much at all. OTOH you can see the Travis Wetlands area etc slumped significantly.

http://cera.govt.nz/sites/default/files/common/tonkin-and-taylor-land-damage-presentation-ccc-area-23-june-2011.pdf

I believe that most of the worst affected areas for subsidence, lateral spread, and liquefaction were areas that in the past had been "inside" loops of the Avon as it meandered, including areas inside bends which had become oxbow lakes. The river deposited fine silts, the water table was high, with a bit of a shake (understatement) it separated and turned to slush. Many of those areas are the residential red-zone.

I doubt that's asbestos contaminated soil stockpiled. Perhaps it's just hard-fill from the demolished buildings - if they're going to need some for the project then perhaps a waste to cart it and dump, then pay to cart more back. I guess that area is possibly close to or below 100 year (or whatever they're going to have to use) flood levels, so unless they find some other way of mitigating the effects from future floods, building up the ground before constructing on it may be needed.

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amiga500

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#1802659 17-Jun-2017 17:30

Exactly a week on, and a week of fine weather, those ponds look the same. Three wading sea birds were busy at the shallow western pond!

I also had a look at the Convention centre site yesterday and the major activity seemed to be drainage work. A company called Water Wells had a massive piece of plant in there at the N/W corner and there was a nice little stream (about a metre wide) leading down to a very large & deep pond on the S/E corner of the site. I saw two engineer type people looking at the little stream & they had puzzled looks on their faces.

Now, this is speculation on my part, but I'm thinking there may no progress on the Metro Sports site until all the drainage work on the Convention Centre site is done. I'm assuming that the same contractors may have both jobs? It all looked like very specialised and expensive plant at the Convention Centre site.

The ground works at the convention centre site look nothing like what was done at the new Novotel hotel site at the airport. This is not surprising of course but expected work can sometimes throw up unexpected challenges and delays...

mattwnz

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#1802664 17-Jun-2017 17:43

The slabs that cracked after the EQs, which had water bubbling up would have been from the liquefaction at the time of the earthquakes, as well as after the aftershocks, as the water gets forced up from the ground movement. So I don't think the water in the ponds is related to that. I guess they have engineers that will solve any problem. Will probably require deep foundations to get good ground bearing. You can build buildings on top of water logged areas. A lot of wellington buildings are. Some buildings basements are even below the water table in Wellington, have have pumps . The weight of some buildings also help to keep the basements, underground.

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#1813398 5-Jul-2017 19:04

Well there you have it.

Starting now, (I saw a bore tower go up recently)

$5m price tag to get started!

https://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/business/the-rebuild/94380652/christchurch-metro-sports-facility-land-remediation-bill-5-million

amiga500

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#1814261 7-Jul-2017 09:55

That Stuff link is well worth a look because it shows a video and photos of the site. These were taken by a drone and show a lot more than what was in the print version of The Press. Guess it will all work in the end - how long to drive the 6000 to 9000 piles mentioned in the story?

Metro Sports opening in 'early 2020'??? It's taken over 3.5 years to build the $300 million Justice Precinct and Metro Sports has the same price tag.

amiga500

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#1823041 15-Jul-2017 23:00

These two photos of the Novotel Hotel project at the Christchurch Airport show what can be achieved in 12 to 13 months if a decent site with good ground is chosen. First photo is the artist impression of the hotel & the second one taken today. This hotel is scheduled to be opened in late 2017. So from when the first groundworks were done to completion will only be around 18 months.

Let's see how far the Metro Sports Centre has progressed by July 2018. I think that is a fair comparison because up until a few days ago all that had been done was clearing the site and scraping up some soil to form the two long ponds! Am I being too harsh in suggesting that there will be many of the 6000 to 9000 piles still to be driven into the ground at that point!

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amiga500

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#1824600 18-Jul-2017 17:03

Construction due to start mid 2017... wonder if drilling those bores count as construction?

'They are currently drilling bores up to 35m deep to remove ground water without disturbing aquifers.

Otakaro chief executive Albert Brantley said the central city location was good for a sports centre.

"The difficulty is it's not exactly the best site to build this type of facility on," he said.'

amiga500

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#1877271 4-Oct-2017 14:50

https://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/97508089/no-start-date-or-contractor-confirmed-for-christchurchs-metro-sports-facility-as-site-sits-empty

Anyone in Christchurch who loves swimming & indoor sports has been royally screwed over....

Just a quick edit to say it's worth reading the comments at the bottom of the article.

amiga500

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#1883423 14-Oct-2017 16:01

Had a look at the site today. The two long ponds in the first photo have now been filled in with gravel. Apart from this the rest of the site have many areas that look like shallow ponds. About 60 seagulls and wading birds are enjoying the ponds on the Western side. A few weeks ago water was gushing from one of the bores into a large skip and then being piped away to the eastern side using a pipe about 25 cm in diameter. This bore has now been sealed but there is still a steady drip of water from it so it looks like there is water pressure there. I assume they were piping the water away into waste water pipes. When I say that water was gushing out of the bore it really was! The water from the horizontal 25 cm pipe was coming out 'full pipe' & obviously under quite a lot of pressure.

There is absolutely no sign of any other work underway yet.

Let's say they do find a major contractor that wants to do the job. It might take a year to get the site ready for actual construction. Then it might take close to four years for construction, judging by how long the Justice Precinct is taking to get to completion. Metro Sports fully operational by early 2023??

k1w1k1d

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#1883486 14-Oct-2017 17:25

Interesting how "fast" government/council projects proceed at compared to what the Russian philanthropist Slava Meyn is achieving with the sports complex he is building.

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