THE problem with the former TAFE building on William Street - whose future has bedevilled Bathurst Regional Council for years - is that it is just too much.
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It is too prominent, too big, requires too much maintenance and is too important to the future of the CBD for there to be any easy answer as to what to do with it.
Mayor Bobby Bourke said in June last year that it was time for councillors to "get off our bum" in making a decision on the building and he sounded some of the same notes this week when talking about a formal proposal put to council to make the site a Performing Arts Centre.
"With council elections approaching, we need to get cracking on this sooner rather than later," he told the Advocate.
History would suggest, though, that's it's going to be later rather than sooner.
To be fair, the site has had some terrible luck: Charles Sturt University was, by all reports, keen on using the building as part of some sort of campus in the CBD before COVID caused chaos in the university sector last year.
And as Cr Bourke alluded to when talking to the Advocate this week, the same virus has made the search for money for the building more difficult.
'We've sat on the TAFE building for too long, yes, but it's also been a difficult year for council to find funding to secure its future," he said.
What the former TAFE building has never lacked is ideas and the performing arts centre proposal is a good one that has the added appeal of having more flesh on its bones than many others.
Members of the Performing Arts Centre group, in a six-page letter sent to council, have not only outlined their vision for the future of the building but have nominated a dollar figure to be set aside in the next budget as part of a staged approach to work on the site.
They have not only explained why the hall on the first floor is perfect for recitals and rehearsals, they have explained why their proposed centre would be important for Bathurst.
It is, in short, far from a thought bubble.
The problem for the Performing Arts Centre group is that a conclusion to the agonising over the future of this site doesn't seem close.
It's appropriate that we refer to it as the former TAFE building, because it deals out another lesson in patience each year.
