Have you seen “Museum Square” lately? Well, if you haven’t, maybe a look at this will inspire you to come downtown and take a look for yourself:

Yes, that’s right — these are the slogans that officials hope will “attract riverfront and Downtown visitors to the site and increase awareness of the project.” It’s a little something I like to call the “ExploraFence” — an homage to one of the museum’s rejected names, “ExploraSphere.” Aren’t they inspiring? Don’t they fill you with a sense that the museum project is “moving forward and that this project is going to happen”?

Yeah, me neither. It’s a fence. Whether you put amateur artwork or professional artwork on it, it’s still a fence around a big concrete slab that should have been developed four years ago. The museum officials are holding the block hostage until we pay the ransom to the tune of some 30 million dollars in sales tax money.

Here’s the thing — the museum folks have missed the deadlines specified in their redevelopment agreement with the city. They’re going to miss them again at the end of this year. In the past, the city has extended the deadlines. But the time has come for the city council to put the kibosh on this project at the end of this year.

Why? Well, I could go on and on, but let’s just limit things to three reasons:

1. The project design is not what was originally presented. What started out as a museum of 110,000 square feet has dwindled to 81,000 square feet. That’s a 26% reduction in size from the original plan. The Journal Star reported in October 2003, “The 110,000-square-foot museum is expected to open in 2007 with areas for Caterpillar Inc., art, history, science and technology, a Childhood Discovery Center, a large-format theater, domed planetarium, auditorium, cafe and outdoor park with sculpture garden.” Now Caterpillar is no longer part of the museum, but will be building a separate visitors center. And the children’s museum is also a separate project now, in a different location, overseen by a separate organization. There have been a couple of smaller components added in the meantime, but nothing of the size and scope of the Caterpillar or children’s museum components. Despite these reductions, the price is going up.
2. Costs are significantly higher than originally estimated, and still rising. Even though they’ve cut the square footage by 26%, removed two large components of the project (Cat and the children’s museum, as mentioned previously), and redesigned the exterior to lower costs (by making it uglier), the price of the project is going up. The original price tag in October 2003 was $65 million. In February of this year, Lakeview Museum CEO Jim Richerson said the price tag was estimated to be “$65 million to $75 million,” which means it’s most assuredly more than $65 million at this point. Museum officials attribute this to rising construction costs. Perhaps they should look at redesigning the museum to save money instead of looking for ways to confiscate it through raised taxes.
3. The funding mechanism is not what was originally proposed. The plan was to raise the money through private donations, state and federal grants, and city perks (such as TIF funding, lease of the Sears block for $1/year, city-funded infrastructure improvements, etc.). Now they want to add a county sales tax to their public funds ledger. That’s not part of the deal. We already pay a never-ending sales tax to the Civic Center; we don’t need a new one for the museum.

And then there’s the fact that under the original plan, they were only going to use a portion of the block, leaving the rest for mixed-use development. They slowly chipped away at that over the years, until now they have the whole block, except for a proposed tiny strip of retail storefronts along Water Street, which they’re also trying to quash. And I haven’t even mentioned the Heart of Peoria Plan, which is a whole separate topic.

It’s simple. The museum didn’t hold up their end of the bargain. They didn’t meet the deadlines. They didn’t raise the money. Case closed. Five years is long enough. They don’t need more time; they need a new plan. If they are unable or unwilling to come up with a new plan, then it’s time to move on.