Cairns Gallery Precinct: Ratepayers to fund $40 million project

Mayor Bob Manning has vowed to build the Cairns Gallery Precinct with or without funding from reluctant state and federal governments — and this is how much it will cost ratepayers.

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MAYOR Bob Manning has vowed to build the $40 million Cairns Gallery Precinct with or without funding from reluctant state and federal governments.

Cairns Regional Council has been waiting for a $13 million helping hand from each of the higher political tiers since April 2018 after ratepayers bought the former Courthouse Hotel for $5.75 million in 2016.

It can wait no more, and Cr Manning has told a Cairns Chamber of Commerce mayoral debate the council will “do a CPAC” and fund the $40 million project itself if necessary.

“We’re going to go on and we’re going to complete the gallery precinct with or without the state and federal governments,” he said.

“They have been holding us back, they will not consider the applications or they won’t give the funds.

“We’re going to continue, as soon as we finish the courthouse, we will move onto the others.

“We’re not going to sit back and wait.”

Cr Manning jokingly refers to the gallery precinct as the “Rubik’s cube” due its ultra-contemporary design and the need for a new building linking together a mishmash of three historic buildings – the courthouse, the Mulgrave Shire building and the existing Cairns Art Gallery.

He recently told the Cairns Post the Cairns Indigenous Art Fair had the potential to become a major internationally-recognised festival that did for Cairns what MONA had done for Tasmania.

But for that to happen, all levels of government needed to make a genuine commitment to indigenous arts – including building the gallery precinct.

“I just can’t understand how the state and feds have not picked up on the gallery precinct,” he said.

This new determination to go it alone – which would be an added $26 million burden on ratepayers – harks back to the council’s funding tactics with the Cairns Performing Arts Centre.

It got sick of waiting for the federal and state governments to chip in funding so forged ahead and started work alone.

Eventually, both parties came to the table and invested heavily in the project.

Cr Manning said workers would keep upgrading the heritage-listed former Courthouse Hotel until November, at which time work would start on the rest of the project.

A recent Australia Council for the Arts report showed arts tourist numbers grew by 47 per cent in the four-year period to 2017, a higher growth rate than overall international tourist numbers of 37 per cent.

Annual visitation at the Cairns Art Gallery has increased from 45,000 to 160,000 in the space of seven years – an increase of 256 per cent.

The council predicts the gallery precinct will inject $20.7 million into the economy each year and add an extra 177 full-time jobs to the city.

Originally published as Cairns Gallery Precinct: Ratepayers to fund $40 million project