Secrecy remains over Basin building

Phil Halse, 20/20 Inner City Revitalisation committee chairman. Photo / John Stone

Closer look at four contenders

A Whangarei District Council committee is keeping mum about four proposals it is considering for the former harbour board building in the Town Basin.

Picked out of 21 ideas submitted after the council called for public input into what to do with the building, the four go through a brass-tacks second assessment tomorrow.

The Northern Advocate learned last week that two of them are a revisited Hundertwasser Arts Centre, resurrected by a group called Prosper Northland, and a maritime-themed museum and arts centre proposed by a group called Future Whangarei.

Tomorrow's workshop/meeting of the 20/20 Inner City Revitalisation committee will be held behind closed doors, its recommendations then to be discussed at an extraordinary council meeting next Wednesday.

It is possible some of the details of which - if any - of the four make it through today's gauntlet will be made public before that meeting.

The 20/20 committee met last Thursday to weed out the non-starters, an initial seven ideas then being whittled down to four.

"We compared them against the assessment matrix, with only four meeting all criteria and able to move through to the next stage in the process," committee chairman Phil Halse said. "The calibre of these four proposals was outstanding, and they definitely merit further consideration.

"I'm now looking forward to the second workshop stage when we can examine the successful proposals in greater depth."

The Whangarei council bought the old harbour board/NRC building in 2003 for $2.2 million plus GST, $1 million above valuation. Since then the building has remained empty except for use for events.