The country's biggest indoor sport and aquatics centre will open to the public in Christchurch next month.
People will be able to whizz down a hydroslide, shoot some hoops or relax in a sauna at Parakiore on Moorhouse Avenue from 5.30am on 17 December.
Christchurch mayor Phil Mauger said the Crown officially handed Parakiore to the city council on 31 October, followed by a fit-out, testing and commissioning process.
"It's certainly been a long road but I know the whole team is thrilled to be preparing for the first event, and then opening the doors to the public," he said.
A formal ceremony will take place on 9 December before Parakiore hosts swimming and basketball competitions for the Special Olympics National Summer Games from 10-14 December, Mauger said.
"It's fitting that such a fantastic event will be the first to make use of the new world-class facility.
"Once we've packed up the Special Olympics and made sure everything is shipshape, the gym, pools, hydroslides and community courts will all be open for public use."
At 32,000 square metres, the centre boasts a 50 metre competition pool, dive pool, five hydroslides, a large recreational pool and a sensory aqua centre as well as nine indoor courts, fitness studios and a High Performance Sport New Zealand training base.
Parakiore was built by Crown Infrastructure Delivery and is now owned and operated by the council. The project was plagued by a litany of problems including construction headaches, unfavourable ground conditions, cost blow-outs and legal wrangling.
The cost of Parakiore was expected to reach about $500 million, more than double the sum originally forecast.
The city council's contribution to the project was capped at $147m.
Considered one of the city's main post-quake anchor projects, the centre was originally expected to be completed in 2016 but a $75m budget blow-out saw a deal with a preferred contractor axed by the government, with the project later handed over to Crown-led project managers.
The delivery agency originally known as Ōtākaro Limited has had two re-brands over the course of construction, changing to Rau Paenga in 2023 and then Crown Infrastructure Delivery.
Construction finally began in 2018 with a revised completion date of October 2021 that was again revised to late-2023 because of logistical difficulties caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.