Museum closure ‘pretty shocking’
The Southland Museum and Art Gallery building will close to the public by the end of this week because it is deemed an earthquake risk.
The shock announcement, which affects 41 staff, was made at a media conference at the Invercargill City Council headquarters yesterday.
Invercargill City Council chief executive Clare Hadley said there were issues of ‘‘critical structural weakness’’.
‘‘We are closing the building because we believe it won’t be safe for large groups of people.’’
The museum is the third prominent building to be shut in Invercargill because of earthquake safety concerns in the last six years, with the famed Water Tower shutting in 2012 and Anderson House being closed in early 2014.
Hadley said she knew of no buildings at risk of closure.
The museum, which was expecting 220,000 people through it doors this year, doubles as an art gallery and also has an information centre, shop, cafe and area for
tuatara. other
The shop and cafe will be closed, the i-Site information centre will be relocated to an as yet unknown location, and the public will still be able to view the tuatara from outside the museum.
The decision to close was made by the Southland Museum and Art Gallery Trust Board with the support of the Invercargill City Council, after the trust board received expert advice two weeks ago regarding the safety of the museum buildings in the case of an earthquake.
A peer review of a previous 2013 seismic assessment confirmed the buildings were less than 34 per cent of the new building standard.
Structural engineer Win Clarke concluded the buildings under the pyramid were probably earthquake prone, Hadley said.
The 41 staff in the museum building would be withdrawn ‘‘as soon as practically possible’’.
The decision was not made lightly, and Hadley acknowledged it would be a difficult time for staff, but no chances were being taken with their safety, she said.
‘‘Redeployment for a lot of those people is a real possibility.’’
Friends of the Museum committee member Bob Simpson said he was speechless at the decision.
‘‘I’m not often short of words but this is pretty shocking.’’
Simpson said he was ‘‘appalled at the lack of proper planning’’ that had been done on refurbishing the museum to date.
‘‘If this shocks somebody into making some sensible decisions and treating the whole subject seriously, that might not be a bad thing.’’
The closure represented an opportunity to shift some of the displays into the CBD, he said.
Museum trust board chairwoman Toni Biddle said the board was devastated the museum was closing but the decision was made in the best interests of public safety. She acknowledged the exceptional service of the staff, who were shocked and upset when the news was delivered to them yesterday. ‘‘This has been a horrific piece of news they had had to deal with today.’’ Immediate priorities would be the wellbeing of staff, the tuatara and the collection, Biddle said. The board would work with council to find what options existed to retain museum staff for the relocation and cataloguing of the collec- tion. The safest place for the collection now was the museum, but the trust board would look at relocating it to temporary premises.
The board would work with the Regional Heritage Committee to see how best to progress a regional storage facility.
The council agreed that, in conjunction with other funding and management partners, it was committed to the future existence of a Southland Museum and Art Gallery, ‘‘in whatever form may eventuate from discussions’’.
The trust board was dealt a bitter blow in February when the Community Trust of Southland withdrew $5 million it had earmarked for the museum redevelopment.
An agenda from yesterday’s trust board meeting, which was held three hours before the closure was announced, indicates it has no more than $174,000 in the kitty for museum redevelopment.
The current long-term plan consultation document says a redevelopment for the museum is proposed to take place in 2028. The document reveals that preparing the collection to be removed from the
museum would take between six and eight years. It would then take a further two years for the collection, numbering more than 75,000 objects, to be moved to a new location.
Councillor Lloyd Esler said Hadley and Biddle could give official answers but he personally thought it was a huge blow. ‘‘I’m a museum person and I like museums and to have one close is never good.’’
He said he hoped the closure would provide the impetus for redevelopment of the facility. ‘‘My expectation would be that it’s a temporary setback, but out of this we’ll see positive things happening.’’
Venture Southland chief executive Paul Casson said the number of attractions closing because of strengthening requirements made his organisation’s work harder. ‘‘It certainly highlights the risks that are associated with earthquakes and seismic activity.’’
Venture Southland was ‘‘frantically looking for options’’ to ensure the i-Site would not have a disruption of service, he said.
‘‘We’ve been working since last week at looking at options for the i-Site in terms of temporary relocation, we want to maintain what we’re currently doing.’’
Invercargill MP Sarah Dowie said she was shocked and saddened by the development but accepted the need to protect the safety of museum staff and the public.
‘‘Heritage and nature are such an integral part of our story and I look forward to hearing interim display options as soon as possible and longterm solutions being
mooted.’’