Donor offer of $100,000 for museum has a catch

Mayor OKS request that Mesa match gift

Mayor Scott Smith gave a gift horse a good, long look in the mouth recently before finally deciding the teeth were OK.

The gift is substantial: $100,000 from an anonymous donor to enhance the upgrade of the Arizona Museum for Youth as it transitions into the i.d.e.a. Museum early next year.

There’s a catch, though: The money comes through only if Mesa matches it.

That’s no easy task for a city still nursing a hangover from the worst recession in 80 years, and Smith wasn’t eager at first to fork over the money.

Already, Smith said, “the city is by far the largest contributor to our museum activities. Sometimes I sort of feel like people forget that.”

He said it irks him when people imply that Mesa’s support of the arts is inadequate.

“It’s a top priority of this council and has been a top priority of this community for many years,” he said. “And I think wereap the benefits of it or we wouldn’t keep doing it.”

Further, Smith said, “I’m a little leery to go down this road because it creates certain complications.”

City Arts and Culture Director Cindy Ornstein explained, however, that the donor believes the museum makeover is a onetime chance to make a unique investment in Mesa’s future.

She and City Manager Chris Brady said the museum developed a business plan showing that the grant and a match would generate enough museum business to recoup the city’s costs.

“We feel there will be a very good return on investment for the city investing in the i.d.e.a. Museum,” Ornstein said. With that, Smith acquiesced. Ornstein said that AMY Friends, a citizens group that supports the museum, has raised another $100,000 to help with the makeover.

The 35-year-old youth museum announced early this year it would close this month and reopen in June under a new name, the i.d.e.a. Museum, reflecting a broader approach to creativity.

The timetable now has been pushed back a half year while the museum looks at several proposed partnerships.

Ornstein oversees the Mesa Arts Center, AMYand the Arizona Museum of Natural History. The proposed budget for all those venues in the coming fiscal year is a bit more than $12 million, of which $11 million will come from Mesa’s general fund.

She is trying to shore up her department’s bottom line, and this year’s budget request includes a full-time person who would beat the bushes for grants and donations. “Weare not growing our contributed income at the rate we would want to,” Ornstein said.

In response to a city auditor’s recommendation, Ornstein also wants to hire a full-time collections manager for the naturalhistory museum.

Her budget would include a part-time curator at the Mesa Grande Cultural Park, the ancient Hohokam ruin that opened to the public last year. That position would be funded entirely by fees from tour groups.

Ornstein outlined a burgeoning relationship with the Mesa Historical Museum, which is privately run but is planning to move into the old city-owned federal building on Macdonald within a few years.

That building is jammed with material owned by the naturalhistory museum, Ornstein said. The history museum has agreed to let Mesa store it at its Lehi Campus for $24,000 a year to cover utility costs, a two-year contract that can be renewed.

In addition, the museums plan to consolidate their collections of Mesa artifacts.

The artifacts were divvied up when the history museum branched off from the naturalhistory museum in the 1980s. “Those history collections should all be under one management,” Ornstein said.

Among the new collaborations that she expects in the coming year are classes taught by Benedictine and Wilkes universities at the Mesa Arts Center.

Ornstein said she will brief the council on May 23 regarding the status of a grant request that would turn the north end of the arts-center campus into a creative outdoor gathering space.