The Bruce County Museum and Cultural Centre. (Bruce County Museum Twitter photo)
Bruce County Council considered potential options for an expansion of the Bruce County Museum.
The museum had engaged a consulting firm to come up with options for the facility to expand, which would give more room for its archives and artifacts that were not currently on display.
TCI Management Consultants presented options to council on Thursday, saying that because of storage needs, the facility would have to be expanded.
The consulting firm came back with four options that would add space, but found that any expansion done the museum would have to be at least 12,000 square feet (1,114 square metres). The report demonstrated that any expansion that was less than that would already be over capacity.
During his presentation to council, TCI Management Director Jon Linton said that an option that would allow for a 12,000-square foot expansion would require the relocation of the two log cabin buildings on the existing site, and once the addition is completed, it would max out the space on the current property and would not allow for any further future expansion.
A benefit of this option would be to keep everything on-site and accessible, which was preferred by members of the public and stakeholders who were surveyed.
Linton also presented an option that would increase the total museum and archive space by 15,000 square feet, but that would require the archive to be moved off-site, but it would create space for the museum and cultural centre to continue holding public events and allow for larger exhibits.
The main benefit of this option would be that the separation of museum and cultural centre from the archive space is that any further expansion wouldn’t be needed for at least another 15 years, according to their estimates.
Members of council weren’t pleased with the price tag of a big expansion, which would be between $13.5 million for the 12,000 square foot expansion, and up to $16.9 million for the proposed option that would move the archive off-site, which does not include the price to acquire land for the move.
Instead, councillors proposed that the county could rent off-site properties to store artifacts that were not currently part of displays, and keep the archive on-site for the time being.