Financial Considerations
The proposing team are in the process of setting up a charity, Brighton Luminarium, to raise funds, develop, build and operate the centre.
Funding required for the completion of the project is expected to be £12M. This covers the cost of developing detailed architectural plans, planning applications, surveying works, construction of the building and installing the infrastructure required to operate the centre. This cost also includes equipment and furnishings and will enable heritage and other artifacts to be acquired and displayed throughout the centre.
The cost of construction and development of the Brighton Luminarium will be covered by grants and charitable donations. For example, the 120 seater planetarium at the Royal Observatory Greenwich cost £3M to construct in 2006 (building and full internal fitting) and was part of a wider £15M redevelopment of the site - that funding was raised through a variety of charitable grants from various educational foundations.
A number of potential funding sources have been identified by the Brighton Luminarium team and will be investigated further.
The cost of construction and fitting-out the Brighton Luminarium will be approximately £12M - details of how this approximate costing has been reached are as follows.
- We begin by assuming a similar footprint to that of the main building of the Observatory Science Centre in Herstmonceux.
- We plan for a 70m x 10m exhibition space, with a second-floor for classrooms of half that area, and a 12m diameter planetarium.
- An additional 22m x 16m area for a shop and café is also presumed.
- The approximate cost of the building has been calculated using the Cost Modelling website, which presents estimates for a wide variety of building uses, including museums and planetaria (£4,200/m2), secondary school classrooms (£2,200/m2), cafés (£2,700/m2) and shops (£2,000/m2).
- The cost of fitting-out these spaces have originated from a wide variety of sources (for museums, classrooms, shops and cafés).
- Based on other planetarium refurbishments and installations around the UK (e.g. the Winchester Science Centre upgrade cost £360k), we expect fitting out of the planetarium to cost an additional £0.5M.
The operating costs for a science and technology discovery centre in Brighton can be estimated by looking at the costs involved in other, similar sized centres across the UK. Such data is publicly available on the Government’s Companies House website. As with museums and science centres across the UK, the primary source of income would be via an admission fee for visitors. Additional income streams for science centres include cafés and shops, parking fees, charitable grants and donations, corporate sponsorship and venue hire (including conferences, weddings, parties, functions, filming, etc).