With respect to the size of the museum, this has changed over time. It’s gotten bigger; it’s gotten slightly smaller as we’ve continued to look at many different options.
-Jim Vergon, Lakeview Museum Board Chairman
So, the Peoria Riverfront Museum might be bigger or it might be smaller, but for sure there will be some “minor changes” because of “rising construction costs,” according to the Journal Star. Considering I’ve never seen a project ever get bigger due to rising construction costs, I’m going to guess Vergon’s quote is code for “it’s going to be smaller, just not as small as has been rumored.” I appreciate the museum partners’ positive outlook, but do they really expect us to believe this:
Vergon said that new program is “going well,” and [Lakeview Spokeswoman Kathleen] Woith adds fundraising has nothing to do with design changes.
Really? You don’t think delays in fundraising had anything to do with construction cost estimates going up, prompting “minor changes” in the design? They’re completely unrelated?
Woith also states that the public fundraising campaign doesn’t start until next year. If the “Circle the Square” campaign is any indication, I wouldn’t get my hopes up if I were Lakeview.
Last June, Jim Ardis and seven other mayors committed to raise $16 million in a year and raise grassroots support for the museum. At that time (6/27/06), the Journal Star reported that “the museum group has raised […] about $16 million in private funds and more than $5 million in a combination of state, federal and local dollars.”
Today, almost a year later, the Journal Star says that, as of February, public dollars total “only $6 million in commitments” and “[p]rivate donations total $18 million, or a little more than half the $35 million being sought.” That means the mayors’ efforts to raise $16 million in a year has so far fallen about $14 million short of the goal.
I hope someone with the museum partners at some point is brave enough to take an honest assessment of why there’s not more excitement about this project. The stalled fundraising should be a big hint that something’s not resonating with the public, or at least that the cost and scope of the project is just too big.
Here we go again. What else is there to be said? The ‘people’ behind this project REFUSE to take a hint. The evil of all of this remains the same. The Lakeview group has never and will never take advice from any outside source [unless they pay a million dollars for it]. It was supposed to be about Peoria and the Peoria region. The public has never supported this effort. The Lakeview ‘group’ has turned a blind-eye to public response [or lack of]. What does this say about the lakeview group? Another Peoria BOARD with its OWN agenda?
“Big Mountain” has pretty well summed it up. The most expensive piece of land south of Chicago and CAT won’t even build their visitor center there unless all the money is raised for the museum. That alone says volumes. That’s why I have called it the “black hole” for money. The city dicked around for years never tearing down the old Sears building. This whole thing is just another fiasco that will end up costing the taxpayers money like the Civic Center.
It would be nice to have a nice museum and new planetarium but we have that already. It’s time for the city to let the private sect develop that land and do it without any handouts from the taxpayers.
Letting Lakeview expand [build a museum] had always been a noteworthy idea. I used to think that a suitable building might already exist in the downtown area, just perfect for the ‘museum’ and it’s ‘mission.’ One that could have been worked-up for a fraction of the cost, etc. Oh well. There is expansion and there is Lakeview expansion!
Having a billion dollar museum in a prime location [downtown] is not going to draw hundreds of [high] rent paying tenants to Peoria. If HIGH culture is what they want they will move to Chicago, etc. Our great entertainment resource is the river. Clean it up, build it up and spruce it up…the people will come. Excuse me!!! Is there anywhere along downtown riverfront I can park my freaking boat?
Hey Big Mountain, I’d be interested in what source you used to get the figure of a “billion” dollars for the proposed new museum. I can assure you that the construction budget for the proposed new museum is somewhere between $30 million and $40 million or about half of what the Civic Center authority spent for their recent expansion. Getting a whole new building for half the price of the Civic Center expansion would seem to be a reasonable and realistic proposal.
Hey Katmandu 2,
Are you serious? OK, maybe bad joke/exaggeration. I honestly do not think I have to explain my point…by the way, which is it – 30 or 40 million? Of course what is the difference? We are only talking about a paltry 10 million…right? The museum has money to burn so why even have this discussion. Besides, you seem to be missing my point. Renovation of a pre-existing building, etc. What the heck kind of sense does “getting a whole new building for half the price of the Civic Center expansion,” make?
BM – am wondering why you’d say the Museum has money to burn, appears to me they don’t even have a penny to burn, they have $24M and they say they need $65M. So what pre-existing building downtown has 80,000 square feet of vacant space as well as adjourning space where a planetarium and an IMAX type theater could be located? I work downtown and I haven’t seen this building. My point is that it appears to me the Museum planners are being financially prudent in their approach if their architects can develop a design that can be built for half the cost of what was recently spent on the Civic Center expansion.
The proposed museum is only 70,000 square feet according to their website. But in any case, I think the point is that the museum partners are biting off more than they can chew with their proposed museum. Look, we’ve already got an art museum and a planetarium. What do we need to replace them/move them downtown? Why not keep Lakeview right where it is (they can have their own capital building project for improvements/expansions) and just build a Peoria history museum downtown? It wouldn’t need as much space, could utilize an existing building (or they could even build a new, urban building on part of the Sears block, leaving the rest of the block open for commercial development), and wouldn’t need adjacent space for a planetarium.
The current everything-plus-the-kitchen-sink museum is simply too big, too expensive, and elements of it are completely unnecessary. It’s almost like Lakeview wanted a shiny new museum and so it glommed onto the Peoria history museum idea like a parasite. Then if people don’t pony up the money they say we must not be interested in having a history museum, which is baloney.
You know what this is like? It’s like in Congress when they want to pass a bill on, say, welfare reform. Then the bill gets loaded up with tons of pork. Then if the president (whoever it is at the time) vetoes the bill because of the pork, it comes out in the press that he voted against welfare reform. It’s a shell game.
Whatever happened to the original $10 million *history* museum that everyone was excited about before all the pork was added?
Thank you C.J.
Katmandu, are you attempting to get on my nerves?
I guess I should know when to stop with the sarcasm.
C.J. has summed up my point[s] very well. I thought my first two entries would have made my position clear. YES! The museum has NO money. We can only guess why.
Well BM, it’s close to the end of the day so you’re probably getting ready to go home and have a cocktail, so I’ll try one more time. First you indicated they were planning to build a “billion” dollar musuem, now you say they have “NO” money. Well if in your perpsective, $24M qualifies as no money, then I sure wouldn’t be hiring you as my accountant any day in the near future.
CJ – if you’re really interesting in digging into how this project developed, then perhaps you should interview some members of the Peoria Historical Society to obtain their perspective on how their nice little $10M local history museum got hi-jacked into a $65M extravaganza.
I imagine there’s more to the story, but I couldn’t get it out of anyone at the Historical Society. All I know is what I read in the papers, and that tells me that this was LaHood’s brainchild because he couldn’t earmark money for each separate museum. Ironically, now that they’re all rolled into one at his suggestion, there’s still no federal money for them. Another great reason why LaHood should leave congress and join up with Bradley. 🙂
Katmandu:
Now you are bordering on lunacy. I think that everyone who reads this blog knows I am being sarcastic when I write about “billion $” museum. If you read, and I presume you can read, my enteries, you would see this. I make quite clear that the museum WANTING to spend millions on a new building and HAVING millions to spend are two very different things.
As for talking to Peo Hist Soc, I am sure you will get the same answer you would get from the other ‘museum partners’….no answer. Don’t forget, all of the board members for all of these ‘institutions’ are the same. Same bull—t agenda all the way around.
Anyway,
This is all old hash. Most, if not all of the issues concerning people today were brought out years ago. Lakeview and associates took the ball and ran….right into a wall. Now what?
Holy cow BM, we agree, it’s all old hash, in fact it was seven years ago in August that the LaHood collaborative proposal was initiatied. And today’s much too nice of a day for me to irritate you for a second day in a row, so just enjoy and stay tuned, something will happen, one way or another. In the meantime, lets all try and enjoy the sunshine.