294
Estimated cost new Government House
Balance in excess
Add, value of present Government House, if sold, 150,000
sq. ft. @ $8 per sq. ft.
Available for other development
$ 2,000,000
$
722,500
1,200,000
$ 1,922,500
The financing of the new Government House is not, however, dependent on the actual sale of the sites referred to above. Money can be found immediately from surplus balances which will be replenished in due course when the sites are actually sold. Nor does this proposal make it absolutely necessary to sell all the sites in question if, as a result of further consideration of the development of this area, it is thought preferable to retain them or any parts of them for other purposes.
out.
5. A suggestion is contained in paragraph 3 above that the site now occupied by the Secretariat and Public Works Department buildings should ultimately be used for the Central Buildings of Government. In the writer's mind there is the further conception that the City Hall and the Colonial Museum should form part of such a scheme the attached sketch* shews in block form how this idea might be carried But this is a question which raises many issues and cannot be settled immediately. The decision whether or not a new Government House should be built should be taken independently of it; there is no real connexion between them, except that the removal of Government House to another site would clear the ground both literally and figuratively for consideration of the subsequent problem. The justification for building a new Government House at the present time rests upon the arguments in paragraph 2 above.
* Not printed.
G. A. S. NORTHCOTE, Governor.