Council’s Infrastructure and Environment Committee has today voted in favour of proceeding with the strengthening and re-opening of Te Whare Taonga o Te Arawa Rotorua Museum.

This decision was made with specific conditions, including limiting additional council funding beyond the already committed $15.5 million and ensuring a de-risked construction contract and project management approach.

Elected members needed to decide whether to proceed with the project, following community consultation after rising costs in the project. The options during consultation were:

Option A

Continue to fully restore the building and reopen as a museum (including an additional $9m of Council funding).

Option B

Stage the project (noting that the Museum would remain closed until the end of Stage 2).

Option C

Find an alternative location for the Museum and its services.

Community feedback strongly supported the full restoration and reopening of the museum, with 85% supporting the Option A.

Committee chair Karen Barker said getting to today’s decision had been a big journey and times were very different now from when the initial decision was made to go ahead with the project. Given the significance of the building and current challenges and the risks associated with the project, Council wanted to be as certain as possible about how to move forward and she supported doing everything possible now to minimise any risk to budgets being exceeded.