2 days ago
- Business
- Otago Daily Times
Airport to provide new HQ
Wakatipu Search and Rescue (LandSAR) has unveiled plans for a new headquarters at Queenstown Airport.
Build committee member Russell Tilsley says the airport company has agreed to provide LandSAR with a site, next to the Heliworks and Alpine Helicopters bases, on the northern side of the runway.
Now based in a corner of a Heliworks hangar, the organisation's 80-odd volunteers need a dedicated building where they can run operations, train and store equipment, Ms Tilsley says.
"We've never had our own base, and with the increase in search and rescue that's happening around the region — summer and winter — we need one."
With suitable land in and around the airport being rapidly snapped up, it's a case of "striking while the iron's hot".
Architect Mary Jowett has completed a design for a two-level, 400sq m building with incident management and comms rooms, a training space, a kitchen/lounge area, two bunk rooms for use during multi-day operations and storage space.
The committee is about to get the build priced, but Tilsley expects it will cost somewhere between $2 million and $3m. A fundraising campaign will be launched in the next few months. He hopes construction can start within 18 months, and the building be up and running a year after that.
Formerly based in Queenstown police station, LandSAR had to move out in 2020 during Covid, and squeezed into the Alpine Cliff Rescue team's base in a converted garage in Lucas Pl, he says.
"There was a group of nearly 80 people operating out of a tin shed."
Heliworks owner Nick Nicholson came to the rescue in 2021, providing the organisation with its current base in one of the company's hangers.
However, it's always been a temporary measure, Ms Tilsley says.
The organisation runs rescue operations — which can last a week — out of Heliworks' boardroom, and its volunteers sleep in the company's office space.
It has benefited from the "incredible" generosity and support of Nicholson, Jowett and the airport company just to get this far, and will be relying on the community to get the build over the line, he says.
LandSAR volunteers do a huge amount for the community, applying high-level expertise and training to save lives.
"These people are vitally important, and this is our opportunity to future-proof the organisation for the next 20 to 30 years."
