Auckland War Memorial Museum was forced to close after asbestos was discovered. Photo: 123RF
Auckland War Memorial Museum says it is likely to stay closed for at least another week.
It has been almost two weeks since asbestos was discovered at the museum, forcing it closed.
A spokesperson for Fire and Emergency said it received the museum's revised fire evacuation scheme on Wednesday and had approved it on Thursday morning.
But the museum's chief executive, David Reeves, said that was just one of the two issues that needed resolving before it could reopen.
"The other one is the full cleaning and approval by WorkSafe for as much of the building as we can in order to open safely," he said.
"That will likely be another week, it may even be longer. It just depends on what our licensed asbestos removalist firm advises, but we're working as quickly as we can."
That would make at least three weeks without visitors or donations.
"It's around $19,000 a day [in lost revenue], and that's made up of a whole range of things we're not able to earn by way of ticket sales, carparks, retail, venue hire, and incidental donations from members of the public," Reeves explained.
"It would be [worrying] if it was for much longer, but we have a really strong balance sheet and we are able to sustain this - $19,000 a day isn't insignificant, but for a short period we are able to readjust other expenditure."
But he assured that staff were continuing to work and being paid in full.
"We've got an off-site office in Newmarket and also lots of people are able to work from home. There is absolutely plenty of work for people to do and we're all fully employed," he said.
"We do have some casual staff and we have paid them for the shifts they were already rostered onto, but obviously forward rosters are affected for them, but we are hoping to get back up and running really as quickly as possible."
Members of the public who had paid for an annual membership would also be compensated, Reeves said.
"We've automatically extended everybody's membership renewal date by one month, and if we end up being closed for longer than that we'll look at that again."
Tour operators relieved closure came in winter
The Public Service Association, which represents a number of employees, applauded the commitment to paying staff while the museum was closed.
"We think it's really positive, we're really pleased with how the museum has been working through this and we've been working closely to make sure we can get these issues resolved," assistant secretary Tom Buckley said.
"It's been challenging but we're glad we've been able to work constructively through these issues."
While the closure has been disappointing for many visitors, private tour operators have taken solace in the closure's timing.
Bush and Beach's private tour of Auckland lists the museum as a key destination, but managing director Ben Thornton noted it only ran during the summer.
"We only operate that private tour a handful of times a year and only ever during the high season [which runs October to March]," he said.
"As long as the museum is open again by October, no tour operator is significantly affected."
Entrada, which operates Auckland's Explorer Bus, said it was offering discounts to make up for the museum's closure.
"It's one of the nine stops on our winter tour, so essentially it means it's one venue that's really popular for our people that isn't available to them," chief operating officer Sam Peate said.
"We have been providing our customers with a small discount just to recognise that one of the venues isn't currently open, and that's managed the situation quite well from our perspective."
But he said the timing was good and that the closure would have had a much larger impact during the summer.
"At the moment we are carrying around a third of the number of passengers we would carry on a busy day in summer, so definitely if you had to choose, you would choose a disruption like this for the winter."
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