Just what museum are we reading about in this article from today’s New York Times?
…the museum is almost out of cash, hurt by fewer visitors than it had hoped for, higher operating costs than it expected and less city support than it had counted on.
…Already, hours have been cut back.
…Museum backers and even civic leaders who do not much like the building [designed by Frank Gehry] still hope for what has come to be known as the “Bilbao effect.”
…Part of the problem might have been…the cost, which climbed to more than $45 million from about $15 million .
If you guessed the Ohr-O’Keefe Museum in Biloxi, Miss., which we last heard from here last November, when it reopened, you win.
The reopening was partial: some of Gehry’s designs are still to be realized. The whole thing was to open next year.
Now, thanks to those items above, it may not — at least not as planned.
Anyone see a common thread of oversized dreams here? It’s great to dream big, but higher operating costs and fewer visitors seem to figure in the woes of many museum (over)expansions. These are things that can be forecast, and yet in Sunday’s Biloxi Sun-Herald, we read:
Ohr President Larry Clark said, “We have exhausted grants that were available and the revenue is not enough to cover the cost of operating the museum.”
…The budget for operations was $1.9 million, in anticipation the city would provide money on a monthly basis. The fact that it hasn’t has been part of ongoing negotiations between the two entities.
The amounts discussed in the past have been in the range of $10,000 a month.
At this point, that wouldn’t make a dent in the need Director Denny Mecham estimated to be $250,000 to $300,000.
Earned revenue is never enough to cover operting costs.
Back in November, the museum said it was expecting 100,000 visitors a year. I should have been more skeptical at the time, but — frankly — I was rooting for the Ohr-O’Keefe.