Given the decision, I can confirm that the main gallery building will close from 5.00 p.m. on Friday 29 February 2008. The building will close for approximately 2½ years and throughout this period exhibitions and events will continue at the Gallery's existing New Gallery building, just across the road. With the required resource consents affecting construction in place, we propose to commence building in late March, subject to the letting of tenders.

This will be a moment gripped with emotion for many people: not least for our regular visitors and for the many artists who have exhibited in or otherwise been inspired or challenged by the Gallery and its programmes; and for current and former staff who will witness the end of an era. While I encourage you to visit the main gallery building before the 29th to see it for the last time in its current form, I am hugely relieved that our development vision can now begin to be realised. Indeed, it returns the Gallery to the world-class standard that it had hitherto attained through successive developments undertaken right throughout the 20th century, fully re-equipped to meet the challenges and the new art and audience demands of the 21st.

I am deeply indebted to our architectural design team and to the consultant teams supporting them, together with the Gallery's highly committed staff and other experts from across Council who have worked as tirelessly to help us reach this milestone. Together with those who have already been both generous and far-sighted in their contributions to the Auckland Art Gallery Foundation's capital campaign, I am confident we are restoring and expanding the country's pre-eminent gallery in a way that will make Aucklanders' proud.

Chris Saines
Director