Invercargill deputy mayor Nobby Clark believes his council’s plans to build a new storage facility to relocate the Southland Museum and Art Gallery’s collections to could end up further delaying the refurbishment of the museum and increasing the project’s cost to ratepayers.
Cr Clark filed a notice of motion about the matter which will be presented to councillors today at the Invercargill City Council’s infrastructural services committee meeting, at which a report about options for the museum storage is to be tabled.
The building was closed to the public in April 2018 because of earthquake safety concerns.
Cr Clark said previous discussions indicated the council was planning to build a new storage facility on council-owned land in Tisbury, the plan being to relocate the museum collection there by 2024.
Although he agreed with the need to build the facility, he believed storage should be sorted before that date.
"Council plans to reopen the museum in 2025-26, but this will be impossible if we continue with this idea. We can’t have a museum closed for a decade."
His motion suggested the council ask the Southland Museum and Art Gallery (SMAG) Trust, which owns the facility’s collection, to relocate the collection by no later than December 20 this year.
"I’m just asking them [the trust] to take the collection to a temporary location, out of the building so we can flatten it and then start the construction of the museum."
Cr Clark believed if the council went ahead with its original plans it might delay the opening of the museum in two years and increase the costs by about 10% per annum.
"The museum rebuild has an estimated cost of around $65million and council plans to spend an additional $10million for a separate storage facility.
"If we wait until 2024, it would delay the start of the work for about 18 months and could cost $9million to $13million more."
He suggested the collection be moved temporarily to the Scottish Hall and Civic Theatre, which were owned by the council.
"I accept that relocating temporary facilities and then into the completed storage facility is a double handle with manpower costs — it is a small cost considering the financial gains."
In a statement, council leisure and recreation manager Steve Giblin said the museum governance group had been set up to create a vision and goals for the future of the facility.
The council was now considering its recommendations, he said.
