Page 2590 - Week 08 - Thursday, 14 August 2014
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organisations and their individual requirements. The feasibility study will also identify complementary commercial activities that could be co-located in the precinct. Key arts organisations have been given notice about the feasibility study and will continue to be actively engaged throughout the process.
Work is also in train in the Ainslie Arts Centre. That includes upgrading the hall to become an accessible and affordable performance space, co-locating office spaces for all tenants, refurbishing the foyer and reception area and modifying the music workshop to include smaller tuition pods.
Cultural planners have worked with Philip Leeson Architects to progress the development of both Ainslie and Gorman House as arts hubs and to develop options for how the centres can be best modified without detriment to their heritage value.
There has been extensive consultation with tenants and management and construction will begin in the last quarter of the year to align with the school terms and public programs.
MADAM SPEAKER: Supplementary question, Ms Porter.
MS PORTER: Minister, could you further tell the Assembly about the work being done to meet the government’s commitments at the Gorman House Arts Centre and the benefits it will bring to the tenants of Gorman House and the ACT community?
MS BURCH: Gorman House Arts Centre is a highly valued arts hub and one of our city’s finest cultural assets but it is also in need of an upgrade. Before the last election we committed to invest $1 million to upgrade the centre. Consultation was undertaken with Gorman House Arts Centre and its tenants, external arts and community users and the new cultural precinct in Braddon, and will continue through the next planning and design stages.
Work in the first stage of construction will focus on a review of entry points from Batman Street, associated signage and landscaping; upgraded administration facilities to accommodate the art centre’s growing staff requirements; upgrades to the Bogong Theatre; and minor upgrades to the Ralph Wilson Theatre and Currong Hall.
Philip Leeson Architects have progressed drawings to final sketch plan stage, and a DA is being prepared. There has been an extensive conversation with the tenants and management of Gorman House. As with the Ainslie Arts Centre, construction will begin in the last quarter of 2014. This will be the first major injection of capital works to support Gorman House since the 1980s. Gorman House has been a centre of alternative community arts activity for three decades, and I look forward to the new future and having more accessible and welcoming aspects for its visitors.
MADAM SPEAKER: Supplementary question, Mr Smyth.
MR SMYTH: Minister, why have you not taken up the Childers Group’s suggestion, which was supported unanimously by the estimates committee, to have an embedded arts officer in the education directorate?
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