Museum unveils plans for first expansion in 32 years

However, budgetary woes delay starting date indefinitely

Back when the Loveland Museum underwent its last big renovation, cellphones required their own carrying cases, and the internet was barely known outside of academia and government agencies.

Now, 32 years later, plans for another renovation and expansion are moving forward. Last week, the city’s Cultural Services division unveiled the latest concept for the museum as a major downtown Loveland cultural and community hub.

“The renderings are beautiful,” said Loveland Mayor Jacki Marsh, who attended the presentation as the City Council liaison to the cultural services advisory board. “It’d be an enhancement for downtown, both for our locals to enjoy, as well as a draw for tourists to visit.”

The Loveland Museum was founded in 1937, though its originator, Harold Dunning, began his career collecting local artifacts in 1919.

The city took ownership of the museum in 1945 and then moved it to its current location on the northwest corner of Fifth Street and Lincoln Avenue in 1956. The building took its present form after a major renovation in 1992.

Expansion of the museum has been on the city’s wish list for decades, but plans have been hampered by development to the east and north and by ongoing funding shortages.

The city conducted a public outreach campaign on museum expansion in 2017, and, a year later, released a concept plan that expanded the building vertically, adding two stories and a rooftop terrace.

In the meantime, the city acquired the property next door to the museum at 201 E. Fifth St., formerly owned by the Loveland Reporter-herald. It is now home to the city’s Beet Education Center, an annex for classes and the museum’s print shop.

Combining the two adjacent buildings is also a natural way to expand, said Loveland Cultural Services Director Susan Ison, so the architects spent a year updating plans to go outward instead of upward.

“It has always been our preference to be able to go from Lincoln to Cleveland and have a presence on both highways,” Ison said. “And, of course, it gave us a lot more property to work with, too.”

The work is to be done in three phases, Ison said, starting with connecting the two buildings and constructing a new main entrance on Fifth Street. As a first step, Loveland City Council voted in November to vacate the public rightof-way easement for the alley separating the museum and the Beet.

The second phase will bring new gallery space to the south side of the museum, where the entrance is currently, and the third phase includes a full remodel of the Beet building and the addition of a 200seat amphitheater.

During the renovations, the building will also be fitted with new environmental control systems to keep temperature and humidity levels consistent in the galleries. In the past, Ison said, some collectors and artists from other parts of the country have been reluctant to send their pieces to Loveland, due to the difference in climate conditions.

“Because the humidity difference on the East Coast is huge,” Ison said. “And that can very much affect pieces of art; things start to warp, they can start to shrink, and so some people will not loan to us.”

The exterior of the building will be updated with glass and bronze finishes, a nod to Loveland’s bronze casting industry, according to the architect’s presentation.

There will also be a new sculpture garden in front of the building that will be free for visitors during museum hours.

Though the concept has changed since the 2018 version, the goals for expansion have not, Ison said. The new concept also prioritizes spaces where people can gather formally or informally, and there will be an outdoor terrace on the second level. The new gallery space will also allow the museum to display more of its 37,000 piece collection and bring in more artists and shows.

Ison did not have a cost estimate for the expansion project, but expects to get that information from the architects sometime in March.

But even with that information in hand, the expansion is unlikely to start anytime soon, both Marsh and Ison said. Though originally scheduled to start sometime this year or next, with the city now facing a potential budget shortfall due to a sales tax reduction, funding for the project is now mired in uncertainty.

“There’s no time frame for when the funds will be there,” Marsh said. “So there’s no start date.”