The four Arranmore farm buildings on the Frankton Flats, also known as McBrides Farm, are set to be the focus of a restoration feasibility study, the Queenstown Lakes District Council confirmed late this week.
Council urban designer Nick Karlovsky said it had engaged heritage conservation firm Jackie Gillies and Associates to complete the study of the buildings, which, apart from one council-owned barn, sit on Queenstown Airport Corporation-owned land.
The council's strategy committee in February decided to explore the possibility of sharing costs for the estimated $23,000 study, the QAC funding three-quarters and QLDC the remainder.
The buildings include a former smithy, dairy, grain barn and stables. They are associated with development of the Wakatipu area as a 19th-century agricultural district centred around grain growing.
"The whole of the Frankton Flats was used for grain and wheat growing after all the miners arrived - and it was well suited for that," Ms Gillies, a conservation architect, said.
"What was most recently a woolshed, was built in the late 1860s or early 1870s as a grain barn and had a threshing floor and all the paraphernalia that goes with processing grain." She estimated the horse stable was built in the 1880s and the dairy between 1860 and 1870.
"They are a group of really important farm buildings that demonstrate all of the different functions that were needed on a farm at the time."
With work slated to start on the joint QAC/QLDC-funded project as early as this month, Mr Karlovsky said the firm would be looking at the condition of the buildings, work required to restore them to a usable level, and potential uses.
He said identifying uses was essential for any hope of restoring the buildings and it would be "a matter of engaging with the airport and Lakes Leisure as to what the future may be".
The report is expected to be completed by late July, or early August.
Mr Karlovsky said while the dairy could become offices, and the smithy - which is now, in essence, two walls and a modern roof - could be used as a tool shed, the QLDC-owned barn had potential for use by Lakes Leisure.
