The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
SWIMMING FORWARD
At 7, Greater Cleveland Aquarium is in the final stages of implementing a number of changes designed to make guests’ experiences more memorable and educational
Since before its opening in January 2012, in Cleveland’s historic FirstEnergy Powerhouse building on the West Bank of the Flats, the Greater Cleveland Aquarium has reflected the “unplugged” vision of its general manager, Tami Brown. ¶ “We are in this beautiful historic building,” Brown says during a recent visit. “We have put as many exhibits as possible into our footprint. But we really wanted to make sure people enjoyed the experience — the intimate experience — they were going to have when they were here, and so from the beginning we’ve really focused on guest interaction… to make sure they were getting some one-on-one time with our team so that they could hear about the animals from a person instead of from a headset or some kind of technology.
“We added a lot of activities so that no matter when you’re here, there’s something special that’s going to happen,” she adds, referencing animal encounters, watching divers work in an exhibit and the ability to ask those divers questions.
At a time when many museums can’t wait to show you, say, a new touchscreen station, the aquarium feels like a throwback.
“It’s a little bit of a tough decision because it does take some thinking. It’s natural to think, ‘Well, we’ll just put a video up about that,’” says Brown, noting you will see a video screen here and there but that they’re exceptions to the rule.
While that hasn’t changed, the attraction is in the final stages of a series of upgrades and new features that, according to information from its revamped website, represent an investment of more than $250,000 for the aquarium, a blend of a nonprofit and forprofit enterprise. There are new and dramatically revamped galleries that bring with them new species.
“The change is remarkable. When we opened, all the walls were a dark blue. All the carpets were a dark blue,” Brown says. “It was pretty stark, to be honest.”
Now, Brown and her team are going for more immersive environments, such as the area where she’s speaking at the moment that’s meant to transport you to a coastal boardwalk. Like other places in the aquarium, such as the Tropical Forest area, it comes complete not just with thematic sights but also sounds.
“We want you to feel like you’re really on one of those wonderful old boardwalks with a cheesy taffy shop and all that good stuff,” she says. “We want you to come in here and relax.”
Revamped areas include the Ohio Lakes & Rivers Gallery — including the addition of a wall devoted to the spotted turtle, an endangered species the aquarium in recent years has partnered with the Cleveland Museum of Natural History and other organizations to try to help — and Lakes & Rivers of the World, which was split into two segments.
Plus, two galleries were added: Asia & Indonesia and the aforementioned Tropical Forest.
And, Brown says, Curator Stephanie White and her team have added numerous species to the aquarium. According to an aquarium spokesperson, those species include round goby, sea lamprey, Solomon Island leaf frogs, frilled lizard, green tree python, Argentine black and white tegu, curl-crested aracaris, a red-footed tortoise, Pacific spiny lumpsuckers and the niftylooking weedy seadragons, with a few more slated to arrive soon.
“Since we’ve opened, we’ve been able to add at least 15 exhibits,” White says, noting that the efforts represent increasing both the number of species and overall diversity without increasing the aquarium’s footprint.
While some changes come as a result of staff suggestions, it’s the visitors who matter most, Brown says.
“If we see a guest — not just one, but many guests — zoom right past an exhibit, which we may love but is not speaking to the guest, then we have an issue,” she says. “And so we will kind of reboot and think about, ‘How do we make that more appealing and something that is going to make somebody stop.’ ”
However, making changes at an aquarium is no simple task — something Brown discovered after years at Northeast Ohio organizations including Positively Cleveland, Cleveland Museum of Art and the Cleveland International Film Festival.
“This has been a great learning experience for me,” she says. “The amount of knowledge and work it takes to operate this place is just mind-boggling in some ways.”
To that point, the husbandry department — the folks who care for the creatures — numbers more than 20, White says.
“And that’s a 24-houra-day operation,” she says. “We always have someone here with their eyes on the animals, their eyes on the equipment, so we make sure we don’t have any issues — because we have a lot of life-support equipment behind the scenes.
“When a guest walks up to an exhibit,” she adds, “and they’re looking through the acrylic in the (tank), they don’t see what’s happening behind the scenes.”
Again, though, so much happens out front, including divers feeding the three species of sharks, two species of stingray and more than 30 species of fish residing in the 230,000-gallon saltwater Shark Gallery & SeaTube that’s been a staple of the aquarium since it opened. It’s an environment that, Brown says, is based on areas of the Atlantic ocean around Florida and the Gulf of Mexico.
White says it is the only option for a saltwater dive in Northeast Ohio and one of the experiences as “VIG” — very-important guest — can have for a price.
To hear White tell it, that all of the improvements are now expected to be finished in mid-March, not the original target, is not surprising.
“Making one little change on the front of the house makes probably 10 times that behind the scenes,” she says, “and because we are such a small facility we try to do it all in-house, so we’ve all become the masters of many skills. That’s a part of the job we all like, but it’s also part of the job that might impede the deadlines now and then.”
One change that likely was less involved was the spreading out of the messaging about conservation, which, Brown says, is part of the aquarium’s common purpose to “energize curiosity by passionately educating and entertaining our guests about aquatic life and conservation.”
She says, “What we realized was by focusing it in one room you were almost overwhelmed by information.”
Now, information about conservation — and what actions folks can take to help the environment — are tied thematically to exhibits and galleries.
“Getting you through a beautiful gallery and introducing you to all these wonderful species and then saying, ‘Hey, they’ve got a little bit of trouble; here’s how you can help them (with) three easy behavior changes,’ (guests are) more likely to remember that and maybe actually choose to do it.”
One more change isn’t quite so weighty. In May, the aquarium, opened the Imagiquarium, a children’s area stemming from what Brown says were tales of kids returning home from a visit and making a pretend aquarium from couch cushions and the like.
“They would do what they saw us doing here, so we thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool to create a space where they can do that here?’”
As a result, in that second-floor space, children can do everything from use equipment to measure aquatic species to construct their own exhibits to do a little play custodial work. (Hey kids, who wants to clean!)
“For anybody who hasn’t been here in a few years, there is a lot that is new,” Brown says. “We have freshened-up, really, every inch of this aquarium, and we invite them to come check it out.”