Town Hall

The Masterton Town Hall was closed in 2016 due to its earthquake prone status and we've been talking about it ever since. There have been several consultations to decide what happens to the building and what a new facility might look like. In the 2023/24 Annual Plan, elected members decided to demolish the existing building and develop a new Town Hall on the site.

Council applied for a resource consent for demolition that was publicly notified over the summer of 2024/25 and awarded in May with conditions. The conditions included:

creating a public space activation plan
drafting concepts for a replacement building and
making an inventory of the things that we can salvage and reuse.

Project Update - 6 October 2025

Quality Demolition and Contracting Ltd have been awarded the contract to demolish the Town Hall.
The Quality Demolition team are on-site from today, erecting safety fencing, doing further asbestos testing, and lifting the pavers at the front of the town hall to protect them during the works.
Parts of the Town Hall are closing as the site is made safe and secure. You can find lots of other free parks in the Discover Whakaoriori app or in the parking map.
A second round of auction items will be available to bid on over the coming weeks, check mdcauction.co.nz for more information.

The town hall auction has now closed and the community are calling in to pick up their purchases. The Projects team are busy finding new homes for the things that didn't sell and organising specialist movers to take care of things like the grand piano.
Elected members have awarded the demolition contract and we are currently working through the terms of the agreement.
The Planning Team are reviewing the public space activation plan and landscaping details.

Contract negotiations are nearing completion and will be announced shortly.
The Town Hall carpark will be closing soon as the site is made safe and secure. You can find lots of other free parks in the Discover Whakaoriori app or in the parking map.
The government have announced that they intend to introduce a bill with proposed changes to the Earthquake Prone Building system. The proposed changes would not affect the earthquake prone status of the Town Hall.

Public Space Activation Plan

There will be some time between the hall coming down and a new facility getting built. A public space activation plan is one way to make sure people can use the area instead of it being fenced off as a building site. Creating the plan was one of the conditions for the resource consent.

The plan shows what the space will look like and includes features like:

grandstand seating
built in chairs and tables
shipping container spaces
outdoor games
trees and shrubs

For more detail including a key, you can download the Concept Plan from the Document Library.

The space will be available to the community to use for events, food trucks, performances and gatherings. If you have ideas about what you want to see if the space, add it to our digital board below and if you have time, skills or equipment that you can contribute to the project, get in touch by emailing projects@mstn.govt.nz.