Rockhampton Museum of Art to cost $2.92 million to operate and maintain

The figure represents 1.3 per cent of Rockhampton Regional Council’s total operational budget and is split into $1.96 million for operations and $960,000 for maintenance.

An architect’s drawing of the Rockhampton Museum of Art.

Keeping the Rockhampton Museum of Art open will cost $2.92 million a year.

The figure represents 1.3 per cent of Rockhampton Regional Council’s total operational budget and is split into $1.96 million for operations and $960,000 for maintenance.

Regional Services general manager Peter Kofod said construction of the gallery would be finished by the end of July, by which point the council would have spent $36.475 million to build the gallery on Quay Street – $31.5 million for Woollam Constructions’ work and $4.975 million for project management, certification, inspections, and testing.

As allocated in its budget, the council will spend $1.5 million of that cost in 2021-22 out of its own pocket, as well as $6.7 million from state and federal government grants.

“At this point it’s the finishing touches and waiting for all the dust to settle before we turn the building’s systems on,” Mr Kofod said.

“The handover to start the bump in is due by the end of the month.”

When the project reached its one-year mark in August 2020, it was projected construction would be complete by late March 2021.

Drew Wickerson, Michelle Landry, Tony Williams, Grant Mathers, Neil Fisher, and Barry O'Rourke in front of the gallery.

The council’s operational plan schedules the gallery’s opening some time before March 31, 2022.

Communities general manager Alicia Cutler said that after construction, a 2,500-piece art collection would be moved from the old gallery to the new one.

“A lot of preparation has already taken place ahead of this move and, given this is a collection of regional significance, we’re taking the time to do it properly,” she said.

“We’ve seconded two staff to manage the day to day operations of the gallery while we look to recruit a new Art Gallery director in the near future.”

A letter sent to ‘supporters of the arts’ from mayor Tony Williams on June 23, the day before the council adopted its budget, said that “in uncertain and constrained times such as these, our commitment to the Rockhampton Museum of Art hasn’t wavered and exceeds what was forecast in the original business case”.

The council did not respond to questions about what specifically exceeded its initial expectations or about the causes of the gallery’s delay.

The Rockhampton Museum of Art was funded by the Federal Government through the Building Better Regions Fund, by the State Government through Arts Queensland and the Building Our Regions program, and by Rockhampton Regional Council.

The State Government committed $15 million, and the Federal Government more than $10 million, to the project.

Originally published as Rockhampton Museum of Art to cost $2.92 million to operate and maintain