Repairs, rent, and resignation cloud New Brunswick Museum’s uptown Saint John future

The New Brunswick Museum’s exhibition centre inside Saint John’s Market Square hasn’t been open to the public in well over a year and there are suggestions the closure may be permanent.

“They’re currently looking for what they’re calling a swing space and everything is being packed up,” says Bernie Riordon, the museum’s former transitional CEO who resigned from the position in mid-January.

Museum board chairperson Kathy Hamer confirms the “without-cause termination” of Riordan’s contract was agreed to mutually due to “circumstances that were not foreseen at the time,” but wouldn’t go into detail.

Divisions of thought over the museum’s future at Market Square appear to be part of the split.

Hamer says there’s nothing new to announce about any reopening of the exhibition space, the museum’s overall future at Market Square, nor the potential for a new location.

“That’s still an open question I would say,” says Hamer. “That again is a question really the province is better equipped to respond to than we are at the board.”

Tammy Scott-Wallace, minister of Tourism, Heritage and Culture, was not made available for an interview.

“I would doubt that in the immediate future any exhibition space would be available in Market Square,” says Hamer, who adds a comprehensive inventory of museum artifacts is currently the main focus for staff.

Riordon says one of his responsibilities when named as transitional CEO in May 2021 was to identify a long-term solution for housing the museum’s offices and collections.

In September 2021, the provincial government changed the museum’s lease agreement with Market Square’s proprietor to a month-to-month arrangement.

“Which I didn’t agree with because it didn’t make any sense,” says Riordon. “If you don’t have a place to move to and you’re talking about swing space, and if you don’t have the final sites resolved, and you know the final result is maybe five years off, you would want to have a plan that has logic.”

Aside from COVID-19 restrictions, the museum’s three-floor exhibition space was last open before Thanksgiving weekend 2020 when heavy rain caused part of the roof to collapse. Only the museum’s first floor boutique has been open since then and it too was recently closed indefinitely, initially due to COVID-19 restrictions.

“We have spent millions of dollars over the past couple of years replacing the roof,” said Bill Hardman, president of the Hardman Group Ltd. “We’ve installed a new central and heating cooling plant. So there are no leaks.”

Hardman says his company has offered a monetary guarantee to the provincial government regarding the roof, along with ideas to revamp the museum’s appearance both inside and outside Market Square.

“If the province did not stay and made the decision to put collections in storage that would be a travesty,” says Hardman.

Neither the provincial government nor Market Square management would confirm details of its month-to-month financial agreement. Hardman says the rent being discussed is the same or lower than it has been for 20 years.

Finding a new home for both the museum’s exhibition and collection spaces has been a long ordeal with several false starts. A plan to build a new facility on Saint John’s waterfront was cut in 2018, shortly after the Blaine Higgs Progressive Conservatives' first election win.

Hamer says one thing is certain about the New Brunswick Museum’s future.

“The museum is going to stay in Saint John,” she says. “We’ve got the province’s commitment on that, the board is 100 per cent committed to that, the staff are 100 per cent committed to that.”

Riordon has a long resume, which includes leading the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia and Beaverbrook Art Gallery in Fredericton. He says he was looking forward to overseeing a national capital fundraising campaign to build a new Saint John museum.

He says the museum’s board has been hindered by provincial government control.

“Rather than a governance board we have an advisory board at best,” says Riordon. “All wonderful people, but not prepared to work at arm's length from government or not prepared to make the hard choices that are required to move the museum once and for all to achieve something very special for New Brunswickers.”

The museum’s archives and research building is located on Douglas Avenue on the city’s north end. The Market Square exhibition centre officially opened in 1996.