The “world-class” fifth space within the QPAC site, dubbed the New Performing Arts Venue, was announced in May 2019 and tipped to allow an extra 300,000 visitors to see 260 more performances a year, with a glass facade, new studio spaces and transparent foyer areas.
Loading
Initially expected to cost $150 million — including $25 million from state-owned QPAC — and hailed as the largest investment in Queensland art infrastructure since the Gallery of Modern Art in 2023, completion was targeted for 2022.
Budget papers in 2020 pushed that to the end of 2022 and revealed the contribution from the state had jumped by an additional $25 million, taking the project cost to $175 million.
In August last year, QPAC chief executive John Kotzas said work was “travelling on time”, with the theatre always intended to open in 2023 — a date reiterated by Arts Minister Leeanne Enoch — despite an opening date in 2023 not mentioned previously.
“There’s work that has to be done, once the building is completed, for us to actually have all the mechanisms working,” Kotzas had said, referring to a “state-of-the-art … electronic flying system” designed to hoist items in and out of the new theatre’s performance space.
Amid questions about the mothballed Wellcamp quarantine centre and housing pressures across the state, Enoch also told the estimates hearing the Housing Department had visited the site to look at its “appropriateness” for crisis accommodation.
The Morning Edition newsletter is your guide to the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up here.
Source link
