Money pot expected to solve storage issues

MTG's basement is being converted.

Money has been set aside by Napier City Council to resolve MTG Hawke's Bay's storage issues.

MTG Director Laura Vodanovich said they had been working on solving storage issues since she stepped into the role in February 2015, and it was now a main priority.

She said: "I'm excited to get to the stage where we can formalise a plan and see some action."

The premises has only been able to house 40 per cent of its collection following the $18 million redevelopment with the new building opening in 2013.

The basement of the MTG building was currently being converted into storage space and Ms Vodanovich was optimistic they would be able to increase the volume of storage onsite.

There was also $629,000 "residual money" from the original building project which had been set aside to address residual storage requirements and ord gallery requirements as a result of the upgrade of the building.

In Napier City Council's 2015-2025 long term plan, the $629,000 is labelled for a "building project" in the 2015-2016 financial year.

The balance of the fund related to income interest received on the fund, and unspent.

Ms Vodanovich said they would be determining how much of the collection could be housed onsite before using this money.

There was no timeframe for the completion of the basement conversion or building of a new facility, but Ms Vodanovich said she "would like to think in this calender year".

The initial intention of the MTG Hawke's Bay, as stated in a 2009 fundraising booklet for the upgrade, had been for a facility capable of storing the entire collection "with room left for further growth".

Documents released to Hawke's Bay Today in 2014 showed Napier City councillors had been told in 2012 there would be a major storage problem with the new facility.

It was also revealed contractor Opus wrote to then chief executive, Neil Taylor in June 2012 to say that while it had first thought the entire collection would fit into the new facility, that was no longer the case for a number of reasons, including that the collection had grown since the MTG project had begun in 2006.