Regional councillors are expected to decide in mid-year whether to continue with the multimillion-dollar project, after receiving more detailed information about project costs and learning how related negotiations have developed.
Council chief executive Peter Bodeker has updated councillors in a report prepared for a regional council meeting in Oamaru today, and further details about the project will be outlined in a council workshop after the meeting.
The ORC has $14million in a building reserve allocated to funding a new head office, and $665,000 has also been allocated in the council's latest draft annual plan for work to develop options for consultation.
Council chairman Stephen Woodhead said this week the council would not finally proceed with the project until public consultation was undertaken later this year.
In his report, Mr Bodeker said the council had last June confirmed its preference for a head office site at a Dunedin City Council-owned car park at 15 Dowling St.
Discussions with the DCC on the potential purchase were ''still in their infancy''.
He would be asking that the city council ''accelerate discussions on this over the next month'' so the regional council could ''start to form a view as to the likely terms and conditions'' for acquiring the land.
Cost estimates, project-related recommendations and ''associated milestones for potentially progressing the project'' would be presented to the regional council next month.
Mr Bodeker was ''very pleased'' with the ''progress and outcomes'' of the process so far, and said the project design team's reporting had been of a very high standard.
The preferred tenderer for architectural services had been confirmed - a collaboration mainly between McCoy Wixon Architects, of Dunedin, and Warren and Mahoney. a national firm with offices in Christchurch, the North Island and Australia.
