Christchurch City Council is seeking feedback on a proposal to gift the property at 33-35 London Street, Lyttelton to the Lyttelton Historical Museum Society, for their new museum.
Project status: Decision made
Open for feedback: 7 June 2017 to 30 June 2017
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Consultation is now closed
on 3 November Council received a staff report and submissions and decided to gift the property at 33-35 London Street, Lyttelton to the Lyttelton Historical Museum Society, for their new museum
Christchurch City Council is seeking feedback on a proposal to gift the property at 33-35 London Street, Lyttelton to the Lyttelton Historical Museum Society, for their new museum.
33-35 London Street, Lyttelton was acquired by the Council in 2008 as a local service centre. The land has been vacant since 2011, when the buildings were substantially damaged in the earthquakes and were subsequently demolished.
Council has no current plans for rebuilding on this site. The Society needs another site for their museum after their most recently-leased premises at 1 Gladstone Quay was made uninhabitable following the Canterbury earthquakes.
Value
The 2017 market valuation of the land assessed its value as $220,000.
Why gift the land?
The Society has requested that the Council gift the land because it will give them more financial certainty and sustainability, both in the short term as they raise capital, and in the longer term as they manage operational costs. Leasing the land would impact on the Society’s ability to raise capital for the build, and for their ongoing sustainability.
For Council, gifting the land means it will no longer incur the costs associated with the properties. It would also enable the return of a community asset that has city-wide benefits. The Society’s collections of more than 8,550 items of local, social and maritime history are internationally significant.
Once open, the Society expects around 10,000 visitors to the museum a year. In the unlikely event that the museum closes, a mechanism would be put in place to ensure the land would revert to the Council.
How will the Society fund the development of the museum?
The Society has plans already in place to source the required funding of around $6 million for the construction of the new building.
They also intend to have a commercial tenant within the building, to generate extra income to help with operational costs.
The building is expected to be complete by 2020.
33-35 London Street, Lyttelton