New home for Mesa Historical Museum in peril

A new home for the Mesa Historical Museum faces an uncertain future despite years of planning, more than half a million dollars in expenses and a ballot measure approved by Mesa voters.

The plans for a new, innovative museum in downtown Mesa with interactive and rotating exhibits sparked excitement when it was discussed as part of a bond package voters approved in 2012.

The museum was going to be housed in the former federal building on Macdonald. But the city-owned building sits gutted — and still empty.

The city has spent more than $600,000 on design and architectural work, but a museum now seems unlikely, according to Mayor John Giles.

Mesa Historical Museum board and staff members said they were caught off guard recently when Giles and City Manager Chris Brady told them the museum was “not a priority anymore.”

“The attitude in the room was: ‘Don’t bother asking. Trust us — the project’s dead,’ ” board member Spencer Morgan said.

City leaders blame museum officials for failing to provide a business plan to show they can afford higher museum operating costs that would come with the larger building. They say they’ve been asking for financial de-

tails for more than a year.

“The reality is the city has been extraordinarily patient in this situation,” Giles said. “Unfortunately, the clock has run out.”

For decades, the Mesa Historical Museum operated out of the 104-yearold Lehi School, out of sight and largely out of mind in northwest Mesa. The museum still owns that building, but it moved to a temporary downtown Mesa location in 2012.

The idea was to move into the refurbished federal building, formerly a post office, as early as 2016.

Plans for the museum to move into the federal building date back about 15 years, when the city asked the federal government to give the federal building to the city.

The feds obliged, under an agreement that the building be used for public recreation or a related purpose. Dennis Kavanaugh, who was on the City Council at the time, said it was always the council’s intent that the building be used, at least in part, by the Mesa Historical Museum.

A decade later, Mesa residents approved the $70 million bond package. Among the ideas floated for bond projects was the renovation of the federal building for the historical museum. The museum would then be responsible for operating costs.

Museum officials said they expected major renovations to begin last summer. But plans halted in July, after the city asked for proof that the museum was financially fit to operate in the new space.

Museum director Lisa Anderson said the operating and utility costs of the building likely would be about $400,000. She said the museum could handle that based on current income and fundraising.

She told council members that her board has already set aside $50,000 for future operating costs and expects to generate an extra $150,000 in the next month from an “outside project.” Anderson would not elaborate on the project.

The museum would have to come up with at least $120,000 more than what they’ve been operating with in recent years.

Anderson said the museum’s typical annual budget in the past ranged from $260,000 to $280,000 per year, though federal tax documents show the museum has spent about $170,000 annually the past three years.

Anderson said the museum has a unique financial model because it’s been operating as “a museum without walls” for the past five years. The museum operates a small gallery, funded by the city, in downtown Mesa, but most of its other “heritage services,” including research and preservation, are provided remotely. Because of that, the museum’s budget has been much lower than one would expect to see in a museum with a permanent home, Anderson said.

Once the museum moves into the federal building, staff will charge for admission and membership and offer programming that will generate more revenue, Anderson said.

But two council members expressed concern that the board has so far done little to no largescale fundraising for the future operating costs.

“We’ve been playing this game back and forth since 2015, and you’re just now — under the threat of having your funding pulled — all of a sudden saying we have people who are willing to donate. The city has been asking for the better part of the year,” Councilman Kevin Thompson told Anderson.

Councilman David Luna, who said he’s served on several non-profit boards, echoed Thompson’s concern.

“Quite frankly, I do have concerns about your fundraising capacity,” Luna said. “So I’m a little reluctant to move forward, because you need to demonstrate to me that you can raise the funds to move forward.”

Anderson said her group has plans for a “large-dollar” fundraising campaign, but it can’t launch it until the city confirms additional details about the museum.

“What people have told us is it’s putting the cart before the horse when you ask for large sums of money, then you can’t tell us for sure what the building’s going to look like or when it’s going to open,” Anderson said.

Kavanaugh, a former museum board member, said he understood the city’s fiduciary duty to ensure the museum could operate on its own. But he acknowledged there’s a “chicken or the egg issue.”

“If I were a potential donor to the Historical Museum in the federal building, I’d want to make sure that the museum actually does move into it,” Kavanaugh said.

Giles said he believes the city made a “goodfaith effort” to show its commitment to the museum project by spending $630,000 on design and architectural work.

That should have been enough to allow the museum to start an aggressive fundraising campaign, he said.

The city operates two other downtown museums. Giles said both the i.d.e.a. Museum and the Arizona Museum of Natural History are undeniably successful and almost always packed — but even they still lose money and rely on the city as a “safety net,” because museums are not natural moneymakers. “The (Mesa Historical) Museum has struggled to demonstrate that they have the capacity to enter into a business that is by its very nature going to lose a lot of money,” Giles said.

Beyond money, Giles said the museum has another hurdle to cross.

Three new council members were installed in January, and the priorities of the governing body are shifting, he said.

The language of the voter-approved 2012 bond package authorized the council to spend up to $70 million in several broad areas, such as museums, but also including parks and open space. As long as the money is spent on projects that fall into one of those categories, the council can reallocate money however it chooses, he said.

“Given that there is no lack of options on how this money has to be spent, it’s subject to the political preferences of the City Council,” Giles said.

Giles and Thompson said there are several proposed park projects that haven’t been funded, and it’s time to spend what’s left of the bond money.

“I’m at the point, personally, of instead of continuing to play the game of wait and see what happens, to shift those dollars to be utilized on another program that the citizens asked us to build for them back when we did the original bond,” Thompson said.

But Kavanaugh, whose term on the council ended in January, said it sets a bad precedent if the council fails to produce one of the major projects touted during the 2012 bond election.

Sixteen-year Mesa resident Sasha Bunger said she was frustrated when she heard the city wanted to walk away from the museum that she and other voters were promised.

“If they’re not going to do what the bond was intended for, what the taxpayers voted for, I want my money back,” Bunger said.

If the council decides to scrap the museum, it will need to vote to reallocate the $5 million it previously set aside to renovate the federal building.

The building has been gutted, and there’s no airconditioning or working utilities. The basement is used as storage for the Arizona Museum of Natural History.

Giles said there’s a “long list of people who would like to get into that building.” But right now, the city is fairly constrained as to how the building can be used under its agreement with the federal government. Giles said the city needs to start working with the federal government to see if those limitations can be removed or changed.

“I’m anxious to activate that building. It’s a shame that people are walking by and that building is shuttered up,” he said.