Children’s Museum future relies on $25M fundraising effort

After nearly 60 years in a West Hartford building with mounting maintenance expenses and an uncertain lease, leaders of the Children's Museum say they will need to raise about $25 million over the next seven months to secure the institution's future.

The museum, which last year provided programming to more than 100,000 people in area classrooms and at its Trout Brook Drive home, plans to ask the legislature when it convenes in January to allocate as much as $15 million in bonding to help it build a larger facility about a mile away, on the West Hartford campus UConn plans to vacate a year from now.

The museum also wants to raise up to $10 million in private donations.

Executive Director Michael Werle said in a recent interview he's been in private discussions with legislators as well as potential donors for much of the year. He said private donations, as well as showing lawmakers a recent improvement in the museum's financial position and convincing them the trend will continue, will be crucial to gaining support.

“We hope for meaningful pledges as we head into January,” Werle said. “It's very ambitious, but if we keep our nose to the grindstone, we think we can do it.”

While $15 million is a drop in the bucket compared to the $2 billion or more the state has been borrowing annually in recent years, the museum's request would also come during a legislative session in which lawmakers are projected to grapple with a $1 billion deficit for the coming fiscal year.

The museum has advantages. For one, West Hartford is a relatively wealthy community, which could make private fundraising easier. The town is also represented by Sen. Beth Bye, a Democrat who chairs the powerful Appropriations Committee. The museum is hoping they can count on Bye to advocate on its behalf in the upcoming session.

Asked about the museum's hopes, Bye released the following statement last week:

“Like all projects, I am happy to discuss this with them. The Museum has been in touch with my office, and I have seen their plans, but I have not made any request for any bonding money on behalf of the Museum. I will continue to work with West Hartford residents, town officials and the Museum as the conversation continues about how to best use the former UConn campus.”

JCJ Architecture President Peter Stevens, who chairs the museum's board of directors, said the museum is fully aware of the fiscal challenges legislators face in the coming year.

“I know we're going to have to pull our weight to a certain extent,” Stevens said. “We're looking to the state for some kind of indication of the value of the museum relative to its benefits to the community.”

He said the fact that the museum in fiscal 2016 grew its revenues by 27 percent, to just under $2 million, and booked its first operating surplus — around $40,000 — in eight years, will be an important selling point for potential public and private investors.

“We need to sustain that position,” he said. “They won't want to make that commitment to an institution that won't be around five years from now.”

Like some other nonprofit museums and institutions in the state, the Children's Museum has never received a line item in the state budget to help cover its operations. It has received state support in the form of grants for exhibits and other initiatives.

Exhibits, designed mainly for kindergartners through middle schoolers, range from an iconic 60-foot sperm whale replica named Connie, the Lizard Lair, an interactive timeline about Mars, among many others.

Though it plans to wait until after the Nov. 8 election to intensify its push, the museum has circulated petitions online and in person, receiving nearly 1,100 signatures urging local and state leaders to facilitate a move to the campus.

Contamination complication

Besides the money-raising challenge, there are also no guarantees the museum will be able to build its new facility on UConn's West Hartford campus. Several things still need to happen, including the town finalizing its $5 million purchase of the property, which got more complicated after a recent environmental-contamination discovery. The property sale was supposed to close next year, but the town recently asked UConn to extend the due diligence period to better determine the extent of the cleanup and potential costs.

“There's a potential wrench,” said West Hartford Town Manager Ron Van Winkle. “I wouldn't say the sale is uncertain, but we need more information.”

UConn spokeswoman Stephanie Reitz confirmed that the contamination was PCBs, a toxin widely used in building construction until the late 1970s, that's since been linked to cancer in animals and various health effects in humans, depending on exposure levels.

A UConn consultant is preparing a report on the contamination, which is expected by month's end. PCBs were found in window caulking, a portion of soil and an area of a basement, she said.

“ … Both UConn and the consultant are confident that the PCBs identified by the town will present no health risk to students, faculty and staff, or the public because the location and condition of the PCBs does not present a pathway to human exposure,” Reitz said.

West Hartford, which has already paid UConn $250,000 under its sale agreement, would owe another $750,000 at the end of a due diligence period on Oct. 12. But now it has asked UConn to extend that deadline, due to the PCB findings.

Reitz said UConn will work with the town to extend the deadline by two months.

Werle hopes the contamination won't present major complications to the museum's proposed plans or complicate its fundraising efforts.

Even with the newly disclosed discovery, he said the eastern portion of the campus (across the street where a parking lot and baseball field are located) remains a viable option for the museum to construct a new facility with 25 percent more floor space and the option to add more.

The museum, of course, would also need West Hartford's approval – if the town does take ownership of the campus – before it could build there. The town could seek other development opportunities for the property as well.

“I don't see it as a show stopper,” Werle said when informed of the contamination last week, adding he believes state and town officials will want to move quickly to develop the property.

Making the case

The Children's Museum sold its property to the neighboring Kingswood Oxford School in 2003 and has been leasing it since.

Its current lease expires next summer. Kingswood Oxford may have future plans for the property that it hasn't revealed publicly, but the school has been accommodating and flexible in renewing the museum's lease and hasn't given any ultimatums, Werle and Stevens said.

“I doubt [Kingswood Oxford] is going to throw us out of here, but we can't afford to stay here much longer,” Werle said. “It's costing us too much.”

A Kingswood Oxford spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

For the museum, annual maintenance costs have ranged from $50,000 to more than $100,000 over the past few years, Werle said. One recent major expense was a roof replacement, and anticipated needs include new boilers, windows and other systems. The museum is also not fully handicap accessible.

Those types of long-term infrastructure investments make less financial sense if a move is several years off.

“You can't do a two-year replacement roof,” Stevens said. “They don't make those.”

Stevens, who has been on the board since 2012, said the museum has remained in place because it wasn't able to find what it saw as the right property, and because the 2008 recession weakened its fiscal position.

He said the board has looked at properties outside of West Hartford, but prefers to stay in town.

When it became clear in 2012 that UConn intended to vacate its campus to move to downtown Hartford, the museum saw what could be one of the only viable sites in a town where real estate comes at a premium.

“We know this is the right place for this family and child-oriented entity,” Werle said.