Cr Nobby Clark filed a notice of motion at Tuesday’s Invercargill City Council infrastructural services committee meeting suggesting the council ask the Southland Museum and Art Gallery Trust to relocate the collection by no later than December 20 this year.
The motion was voted down, only Crs Clark, Alan Arnold, Nigel Skelt, Peter Kett and Mayor Sir Tim Shadbolt voting in favour of it.
Cr Clark said previous discussions indicated the council wanted 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 earlier as the current plan could end up further delaying the the museum’s refurbishment and increasing the cost to ratepayers.
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 pyramid building was closed to the public in April 2018 because of earthquake safety concerns.
"This process [of building the storage and the museum] should be parallel, not sequential," Cr Clark said.
He believed collection should be transferred to a temporary location as ratepayers were frustrated.
"They just want the things to be done."
Council leisure and recreation group manager Steve Gibling said he could not recommend the collection be moved by December 20 as there was a range of factors that could put the main project at risk.
About 76% of the collection was ready to be moved, but 24% still needed to be sorted and the most optimistic deadline for that would be 12 months, he said.
He also advised any attempt to meet Cr Clark’s suggested timeframe would divert the attention of key council staff at a time when commencing both the storage and the procurement of the design and project team was subject to a tight timeframe.
"It could create further programme risk for the end delivery date of 2027," he said.
Council infrastructure group manager Erin Moogan agreed and said if the motion passed, it would put the museum project in "a greater risk" than managing the removal of the collection in a reasonable timeframe.
The council would consult with the community soon about the museum project and the building of the storage facility would be part of that, she said.
