Bay of Plenty Times
  • Bay of Plenty Times home
  • Latest news
  • Business
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Property
  • Sport
  • Video
  • Death notices
  • Classifieds

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • On The Up
  • Business
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Residential property listings
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology
  • Sport

Locations

  • Coromandel & Hauraki
  • Katikati
  • Tauranga
  • Mount Maunganui
  • Pāpāmoa
  • Te Puke
  • Whakatāne
  • Rotorua

Media

  • Video
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-Editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

Weather

  • Thames
  • Tauranga
  • Whakatāne
  • Rotorua

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / Bay of Plenty Times

Will they or won't they: Museum decision day

Samantha Motion
By Samantha Motion
Regional Content Leader·Bay of Plenty Times·
4 Dec, 2017 04:00 PM3 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

Committee chairman councillor Larry Baldock at the Museum and Library engagement space. Photo/Andrew Warner

Committee chairman councillor Larry Baldock at the Museum and Library engagement space. Photo/Andrew Warner

It's decision day for the museum.

In a 1pm meeting a Tauranga City Council committee will decide whether or not to push on with a project to build a museum in New Zealand's fifth-largest city.

The decision before the City Transformation Committee today is not quite that clear-cut but given there remains a big chunk of Tauranga residents who either don't want a museum or (more likely) don't want to pay for one, it's the first hurdle to pass.

Read more: Opinion: Who wants a museum?

Committee chairman Larry Baldock has promised that this time, the council is going to get it done.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

The build-up to this decision has been a flurry of reports, surveys, presentations, workshops and letters to the editor.

Instead of making a recommendation to the committee, council staff have collated all the relevant data collected for the museum business case into a "multi-criteria matrix" (translation: really big table) that councillors can use to weigh variables.

The business case, by the way, has cost $463,000 to the end of October. That's in addition to the $1.2 milion the council spent looking into the museum-on-a-pier idea that fell over in 2007.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Assuming the committee is happy to proceed with a museum, the next hurdles will be picking a location, deciding how a new library (yes, that's on the table too) should feature in the plans and everyone's favourite question: how to pay for it all.

Designs prepared by architects Jasmaz showing how the bulk of the three main building options could look in location. Images/Tauranga City Council
Designs prepared by architects Jasmaz showing how the bulk of the three main building options could look in location. Images/Tauranga City Council

Location-wise, both the site of the old council administration building on Willow St and the old bowling club green and carpark on Cliff Rd - favoured by iwi - will be considered.

Taking the downtown option would - as per the current options investigated - involve integrating the museum with a new central library, though revisiting a side-by-side museum and library was raised by a few councillors last week.

As for costs, those prepared by architects Jasmax have not been well received. The architects say the price reflects the sites and the aspirations of the community for a museum "experience" on par with New Zealand's best.

Discover more

Concern new museum cost estimates will 'spook the horses'

29 Nov 04:11 PM

Museum decision: Do numbers tell whole story?

30 Nov 11:05 PM

Inside Story: Tauranga's museum debate

05 Dec 04:23 AM

Stored treasures: A tour of Tauranga's Heritage Collection

03 Dec 05:19 AM

A few years ago the price tag for building Tauranga a museum was estimated at about $20m-25m.

A few months ago it was about $60m combined for a museum and new central library.

As of last week, those costs had ballooned to more than $100m for both facilities, with the Cliff Rd site estimated to have the highest build cost per square metre.

The new estimates prompted Tauranga MP Simon Bridges to wade into the debate, posting on Facebook that the council needed to "stop being stupid" and "forget Cliff Rd".

What might happen

Our educated guess at which ways the decision might go.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

1. In the spirit of getting on with it, the committee chooses a location, accepts the current brief and price estimates and bites the bullet on cost. They put their decision forward to the full council.

2. The committee chooses to support a location and integrated/standalone option but refuses to accept the current eye-watering price estimates and asks for a scaled down brief and/or new cost estimates.

3. Councillors - staring down the barrel of an unpalatable 13.6 per cent rate increase next year - decide now is not the right time to build a museum and put the project off.

4. Not satisfied with the options on the table or the quality of investigations to date, councillors ask for more exploration - more options, more data. Bit of a fizzer.

Save

    Share this article

Latest from Bay of Plenty Times

Bay of Plenty Times

Māori fighter stars in Netflix boxing event

07 Jul 01:24 AM
Bay of Plenty Times

Police search for suspect after man shot in leg

06 Jul 10:51 PM
Bay of Plenty Times

Teen's sudden cancer diagnosis puts close-knit family on 'rollercoaster ride'

06 Jul 06:00 PM

From early mornings to easy living

sponsored
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from Bay of Plenty Times

Māori fighter stars in Netflix boxing event

Māori fighter stars in Netflix boxing event

07 Jul 01:24 AM

Cherneka Johnson's fight will stream live on Netflix, a first for a Kiwi boxer.

Police search for suspect after man shot in leg

Police search for suspect after man shot in leg

06 Jul 10:51 PM
Teen's sudden cancer diagnosis puts close-knit family on 'rollercoaster ride'

Teen's sudden cancer diagnosis puts close-knit family on 'rollercoaster ride'

06 Jul 06:00 PM
Premium
Balancing power: What the employment law changes mean for you

Balancing power: What the employment law changes mean for you

06 Jul 05:00 PM
Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky
sponsored

Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky

NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • Bay of Plenty Times e-edition
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Subscribe to the Bay of Plenty Times
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • NZME Events
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP