Removing the original buildings, clearing the current site of the New Brunswick Museum’s Collections Centre on Douglas Avenue in Saint John—which is in really rough shape—and building a new, more compact structure there is the latest proposal on the future of the centre.
New Brunswick Museum CEO Jane Fullerton delivering a presentation in the Exhibition Centre, saying with the discovery of a significant archelogical site behind the museum the only area they can work on is the area already disturbed by construction done in the 1930s, the addition done in the 1970s and the parking lot.
With issues like water leaks, heating and ventilation issues and no fire suppression system, it’s said that the building does not provide an adequate or safe environment for the collections or staff. The situation has been described as extremely serious and urgent. Fullerton says for the Collections Centre they are facing a deadline at the end of 2017 for them to vacate the building due to the structural issues in that building, “the ongoing issues of that building are just getting worse and worse, they’re damaging the collections and they have the ability to be damaging people as well.”
Fullerton says they’ve put in a request in with the province for the capital budget for the Collections Centre for $2.5-million in order to move forward with the proposal.
It’s expected that this would be approximately a five-year project starting in 2017 with museum being completely moved back in by 2021.
