On Thursday night Orange City Council voted to award the tender to Zauner, which has a track record of working with  other regional council on projects such as the new Albury Regional Gallery and The Cube Entertainment Centre at Wodonga. 

Once built, Orange Regional Museum will feature a 200-square-metre entry lobby and tourist information centre, a cafe and retail facilities, 515 square metres of exhibition space, a loading dock and administration office. 

Orange mayor John Davis said along with the Anzac Park indoor sports stadium, the Macquarie Pipeline and the aquatic centre, this would be another major piece of community infrastructure for Orange. 

“This budget is going to let us address drainage issues in the Civic Square alongside the new museum building, as well as put the new museum on higher foundations designed to avoid those problems in future,” Cr Davis said. 

“The contract will also cover the costs of fitting out the new museum.” 

Regional museum working party chair Neil Jones said the community would welcome the latest milestone in the museum project. 

“It’s a project that the community has been waiting on for many years with significant contributions by past and current councillors,” he said. 

“Community fundraising will do its best to rise to the challenge of this new budget and the council will continue to explore new sources of government funding.” 

Contributions to the project include $4 million from the federal government and $1 million from the NSW government that donated the value of the Crown land on which the museum will be built.