One of the items on the Council agenda yesterday was this 3-page pdf which surprisingly (given the council’s usual secrecy) was public. An extract:
As part of the 2018 – 2038 Long Term Plan, Council identified as one of its
objectives to redevelop the existing Mahara Gallery in 2021.
The Steering Group for this project is responsible for overseeing the development objectives of the Mahara Gallery. The steering group comprises members of both the Council and Mahara Trust as well as representatives of the Field Family.
Through Council Officers, the Steering Group authorised the procurement process for the selection of an architect to undertake the design work associated with the redevelopment.
The Procurement process was undertaken in two stages. The first stage was advertised through an open Expressions of Interest process. Respondents were required to outline experience, capability, capacity and business credentials, based on the Steering Group’s design specification.
Eleven responses were received and from that selection the Steering Group shortlisted three responses to move to a closed Request for Proposal (RFP) stage. The shortlisted respondents were Athfield Architects, Architecture Plus and Warren and Mahoney.
ISSUES AND OPTIONS
Each of the three RFP respondents were required to prepare a “Concept” plan for their vision of the Gallery based on the Steering Group’s design brief taking into account a total budget of $5.206 million including professional fees, consents and other costs. They were also required to confirm acceptance to the proposed form of Contract based on the New Zealand Architects Agreement for Architect Services.
It would be a lovely opportunity to have a survey on the number of ratepayers who visit the gallery.
In fact such a survey could be widened to find out the number of ratepayers who use all council high cost venues.
The gallery may keep a record of visitor numbers, you could ask. The issue though, is more how many extra visitors would it get if it was a decent size with much more on display?