- A Queenstown buyer purchased St Ninian’s Presbyterian Church in Hawea Flat for $439,000.
- The new owner plans to keep the church available for community events and hire.
- The congregation will continue using the church while work on its new building carries on.
A historic South Island church has been picked up for $439,000 – and the new owner has pledged to keep the much-loved building open for the community it serves.
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St Ninian’s Presbyterian Church, in Hawea Flat, Otago, was listed for sale at the end of last year after the congregation outgrew the site and shifted to new premises about 6km away.
The listing on OneRoof attracted a huge amount of interest, including locals.
Some passionate residents set up a “Save St Ninian’s Community Group” to raise money to buy the church and keep it open for local events, weddings and workshops.
St Ninian’s did not respond to OneRoof’s request for comment, but confirmed the sale on its Facebook page last week. It said the new owner, who is from Queenstown, planned to keep the property available to the community.
The church community worked hard to maintain and preserve this slice of Central Otago history. Photo / Supplied
The church has a small kitchen but required a lot of work if it was to be converted into a residence. Photo / Supplied
“The final settlement will be later in 2025, until then the Hawea church and its community users will continue to use it,” the church said.
Century 21 agent Anna Findlay said the result was a win for the rural community of Hawea Flat.
“It’s a building that has been in that area for a long time and I think for the space to still be available for people to use is quite important.”
Findlay said the response to the listing had been “phenomenal”. It received 11,000 views, 300 enquiries and multiple viewings.
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Enquiries had come from all over New Zealand and even Australia. Among the interested parties were those who loved churches and heritage buildings and buyers looking to convert it into an affordable residence or even a community space.
The new owner plans to carry out extensive planting on the 1012sqm corner site and do some structural work on the building before hiring it out as a venue. “I believe their intention will be to look for groups or people over here that will potentially lease it, or rent it or use it as it is,” Findlay told OneRoof.
She said the late settlement meant the congregation could continue to worship there while the new premises was under construction.
The property sold for the asking price of $439,000. Findlay previously told OneRoof the property, which has a CV of $330,000, was a “tricky one” to put a value on because most of the properties in the area were at least three times the size and were residential dwellings.
The new owners plan to extensively plant the grounds before making it available for community hire. Photo / Supplied
In December last year, the church leaders said that the decision to sell its home of 90 years was made with a “mixture of sadness and excitement”.
St Ninian’s has a strong history in the community and played an important role supporting the workers who built the Haast Pass-Makarora Road during the 1930s and those involved in the construction of the Hawea Control Dam in the 1950s.
The building had been lovingly maintained by its congregation and was extended several times to house its growing congregation. A vestry was added in 1956 and a small kitchen and washroom built in 1959 using the neighbouring school’s water supply.
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