“Watch closely kids, I will use science to show you how money disappears.”
Let’s first look at what we know;
The city (probably) needs more administration space.
The city OWNS the Washington Pavilion and spends millions each year maintaining the building.
The city is close to $400,000,000.00 in debt and we certainly don’t need to be bonding for a possible $24 million dollar building.
The Kirby Science Center has long been a financial drain on the facility. Some of said that if the Pavilion eliminated the Science Center, the remaining entities (The VAC, The Cinedome, Leonardos, The Belbas Theatre and the Great Hall) could be profitable and eliminate a subsidy.
There are also some great benefits;
Like I said above, we already own the building and dump plenty of tax dollars in it already each year for maintenance.
We already have a parking ramp that could be used.
The building is only 2 blocks from city hall, 1 block from Carnegie and in the heart of downtown.
We could leave the gift shop, the cinedome and the restaurant open and still have access to three floors and thousands of feet of square footage.
Converting the space to city offices would be minimal cost at most. In fact, auctioning off the exhibits would probably pay for the conversion.
There would also be some detractors;
What kind of sponsorship contract was drawn up with the Kirby Family? And can that contract be broken? We could rename it the Kirby Municipal Services Building.
There will also be a huge pushback from the Pavilion’s Board of Directors who will argue that the education provided at the Science Center is tied in with the total mission of the WP. I don’t disagree with that, but there has to be a point where we use some common sense. People also fear failure, and are willing to throw (tax payer) money at something long enough to cover up the problem.
The way I look at it, it would be beneficial to the Pavilion to cut ties with the science center, they could use the extra revenue to bring in more shows to the Great Hall and VAC. Of course the backwards thinking in the building by some of it’s directors probably enjoy being in the hole every year to give them excuse to come crawling for more money each year. They apparently need to spend some time over at the ZOO and learn how to make a great institution while slowly weaning themselves off the tit.
Also, our mayor who argues for fiscal prudence all the time should be falling over himself to secure such a great idea.
Once again though, the common sense of a blogger is usually trumped by the spend happy bureaucrats that run this city. Let’s face it, this isn’t about getting the best deal on an administration building we may or may not need, this about another handout to some local contractors who are buds with the mayor and some of the city council.
