Group ‘led up garden path’
A proposal for a performing arts centre in the central business district is on its last legs with its committee calling the actions of the Invercargill City Council disappointing and short-sighted.
However, the council says the proposal was not fully developed and that it was unaffordable in the short term.
The Southland Musicians Club, Invercargill Garrison Band Society and Southland Scottish Hall Community Trust have been working on the plan since 2009 and say 25 groups would use the centre which they wanted to develop in Esk St.
The centre would strengthen the city’s downtown and draw in newcomers, bind the community, enliven the CBD and improve the local economic and social impact, the group says.
In an April 14 letter to the group, city council chief executive Richard King says the council ‘‘had not yet received a complete proposal and has not made a decision on the future use of the land subject to this proposal’’.
The proposal was not a priority for the council and ‘‘some other community funders because of affordability issues’’, the letter says.
It says the Invercargill Licensing Trust and Community Trust of Southland had ‘‘scaled back substantially the amounts they are able to donate for community projects’’ and that their priorities were completion of the funding for the redevelopment of the ‘‘Indoor Stadium and; and The proposed Museum redevelopment (estimated $20-$40 million?) In reality, a funding package to provide for your proposal may be 8 to 10 years, at least’’, the letter says.
It goes on to say that ‘‘council has also purchased the adjacent land to the Scottish Hall for car parking purposes which will be developed in conjunction with the CBD upgrade’’.
Performing Arts Centre Committee chairman Trevor Daley said the committee was disappointed at the outcome.
‘‘We feel we were led up the garden path a little bit. The problem is that the council wanted the land that we wanted, and who was going to get it? We had no show. We see that as extremely shortsighted. What’s disappointing is that when council bought that land they knew we wanted it.’’
The city council bought the properties, at 116 Esk St and 30 Deveron St, from Fairfax Media in September last year.
Despite the setback, the musicians club was still investigating the possibility of relocating into the city centre, Daley said.
King said the council had to consider what its priorities were and what was affordable now and in the future – he thought the arts centre cost was $11m.
Daley said the original proposal was $11m but this had been scaled back to $5m after Invercargill Musical Theatre pulled out.
King said there was an expectation the council would be contributing to the project, either financially, in-kind, via facilities or by providing a site.
While the Esk and Deveron streets properties were being used for car parking, King said that could change in the future – and an arts centre was one of those possibilities.
When asked if the council was being short-sighted, King said every proposal was subject to funding and the council had to be realistic. He said the council had kept an open mind about the proposal.
Councillor Lindsay Abbott, who sits on the committee, said he was quite keen to see the proposal progress but there did not appear to be immediate support for it around the council table.
In March, Venture Southland declined a $20,000 request from the committee for a feasibility documentation process, saying its own Project Art Southland had scoped out community arts development in the region. The Venture project led to the creation of the Arts South Charitable Trust.
Venture Southland creative projects manager Angela Newell said there was still a lot of work to be done around the inner-city development and the Southland Museum and Art Gallery’s future, and that all arts stakeholders needed to be involved in coming up with an integrated solution.
She said she was not aware of any specific Arts South Charitable Trust initiatives around the latter, but that trustees were talking to members of the arts community.