Chloe Searle thinks she’s the closest she will ever come to knowing what it’s like to win Lotto.

The Forrester Gallery director received the news on Friday (September 15) that a funding application to the Regional Culture and Heritage Fund for $6.5m was granted.

The money means the final part of an ongoing, four-stage Cultural Facilities Development Project of both the gallery and the Waitaki Museum & Archive, can now be completed. 

About $7m had been needed to be raised externally in order for the construction work to go ahead.

The 18-month project to upgrade the Museum & Archive was completed at the end of last year, and Chloe hoped by this time next year, the planned renovations to the Forrester will be under way.

“It's been a big journey trying to get these two beautiful heritage buildings up to modern standards.

“Of course we love our buildings for the Forrester and for the museum, but at the same time, they were both built in the 1880s and neither of them were made as museums, galleries or archives. So these projects have really enabled us to have the best of both worlds.”

“For the gallery, it will mean we can keep using this beautiful building, but we can also get things like a lift. 

“We can get an art store that's actually made as an art store, rather than being bedrooms, which is what we're using downstairs.” 

Receiving the news the gallery was successful in its application was a welcome surprise, she said.

“It's a very contested fund, and they really are very rigorous in what they want to approve in particular.

“It's a fund of last-resort, so they want to make sure that, you know, your council have invested, your local community have invested, other funds have invested, so you have to have done a lot of work, which this community has, in terms of work on this building back in 2019 and 2020 and also on the Museum & Archive since 2018, through to this year.

“That, I think, has really helped them have the confidence that this community is investing in these cultural facilities.”

It means the buildings are “future proofed”, and the plans are things people had been talking about for the buildings since the 1990s when it became really apparent they needed “a bit of TLC”, Chloe said.

“And needed someone to look and go, ‘okay, well what are we going to do in the community over the next 40 or 50 years, and how can the buildings support that?’.”

Work on the first of the four project stages dates back to 2018, with renovations on the ground floor of the museum. 

In 2019 the gallery building closed for stage one for the gallery, which involved sorting out issues with water getting into the building, asbestos, and bringing it up to fire safety standards.

Stage two for the museum involved earthquake strengthening, putting a lift in that building and doing up the upper floor. 

“Then this final project stage for here is this wing on the back of the building to improve the accessibility and collection care here,” Chloe said.

A new accessible community education space will be included, and improved facilities such as a lift, toilets, parking and wheelchair ramp. The new wing will provide more space for exhibitions as well as climate-controlled storage for the gallery’s 2,500 piece collection of New Zealand art.

To top up the Culture and Heritage Fund, there has also been a $400,000 grant from the Lotteries Commission, and the Friends of the Forrester have been fundraising in the community.

“So we're really confident we can proceed to getting building consent and then going out for tender,” she said.

“So that's the next stage, finalising the building plans, getting building consent and then going through that procurement stage to make sure we get really good value,” she said.

Drafting up plans will involve working with Heritage New Zealand on the Category 1 listed former Bank of New South Wales building.

“It's not going to happen overnight. And that's just because, you know, we've got to make sure we really do things in the right way. Especially with this being a heritage building, we want to make sure those plans are absolutely right.”

One of the best parts about receiving news of the funding was calling up former gallery directors Jane McKnight, who was director for the stage one projects, and Warwick Smith, who had been director for the 27 years prior. Both had been a part of the vision for the building work, Chloe said.

“So, [it was] pretty cool to be able to call them up, and some of the longstanding friends of the gallery, some of the artists who have exhibited here over many years, all these people who have contributed in some way and say, ‘hey, it's gonna happen’.”

Waitaki Mayor Gary Kircher said the money is providing the district the opportunity to have a facility that is going to be “top notch”. 

“It's always been something that many other districts have been envious of, but to improve the accessibility for everyone, to increase the exhibition space, to have the education space, they're all things which are going to make a real difference.”

The $6.5m was part of a total $16.5m distributed from the Culture and Heritage Fund - the rest of the money going to upgrades and earthquake strengthening of the Canterbury Museum.