Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, July 15, 1990 TAG: 9007150175
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: E1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DWAYNE YANCEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
In the early 1970s, a young Kansan named Bern Ewert found himself as deputy city manager in Charlottesville - and fascinated by the early American history all around him.
But one thing intrigued him more than Monticello and the ubiquitious presence of Thomas Jefferson. One day Ewert asked a fellow city official about it: "Why is there a statue of Lewis and Clark at the intersection of Fifth and Main?"
Mike Gleason explained that the two Western explorers were from Albemarle County.
Ewert - who, like other Westerners, had grown up on stories about the transcontinental trek made by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark - was thrilled. So what did Virginia do to recognize their achievement besides this statue? he asked.
Nothing, Gleason replied.
Ewert was appalled. "It took a lot to convince him they're heroes in the West," Ewert recalls. "I said `Mike, let me tell you the rest of the story.'"
Over the next 12 months Gleason read up on Lewis and Clark while Ewert thought about ways to tell Easterners about what two native Virginians had done out West.
One suggestion was to create an animal compound - with bison, elk and other North American animals that Lewis and Clark discovered on their journey - to commemorate the two explorers. "But it never really got off the ground," Ewert says.
Soon after, Ewert moved on to city manager jobs in Connecticut and Roanoke, and Gleason went to Washington.
But the vision endured.
And when Roanoke started talking in 1984 and 1985 about expanding its zoo, Ewert was quick to sense that this could be the vehicle he'd been looking for to tell the Lewis and Clark story.
In July 1985, Ewert shocked Roanoke by quitting his job as city manager to pursue his vision. Cynics called it Ewert's Folly. He called it Explore.
\ Mixed results
After five years of trying, Explore's future is as hazy as the Blue Ridge on a motionless summer day.
To give Ewert credit, he's moved the project farther than skeptics ever imagined it would go.
He got Congress to authorize a 9-mile scenic drive along the Roanoke River, something Roanokers had been talking about since 1907. And, even without the power of condemnation, Explore now owns about three-fourths of the 1,700 acres it wants.
One of the most significant actions regarding Explore was little-noticed at the time: Vinton Del. Richard Cranwell's bill that made Explore a state project, owned and governed by a board appointed by the governor - an act that allows Explore to call itself a state park but operate independent of the state bureaucracy.
Explore came along at a time when many Roanoke Valley business and political leaders were starting to worry about the valley's sluggish growth - and Ewert's vision of a state park commemorating Lewis and Clark became their vision, too, as a way to make Roanoke a tourist capital.
"I still believe it has the potential to do for Roanoke and Western Virginia what Colonial Williamsburg has done for the Peninsula and I don't believe there's an ounce of overstatement in that," says Warner Dalhouse, chairman of Dominion Bankshares, the largest company still headquartered in Roanoke.
After five years, Ewert has an impressive set of plans and list of advisory committees - including such prominent names as National Geographic Society President Gilbert Grosvenor. And he can point to how the project has, in one form or another, attracted about $30 million in support - mostly from the federal and state governments for buying land and building the parkway.
Yet after five years, Explore has little to show except land and plans. Ewert once spoke of raising $6 million or more by the summer of 1988; instead, the project has raised only $1 million for construction by the summer of 1990.
Ewert has cautioned that cultivating the kind of major donations Explore seeks is a long, slow process.
\ Scaling back
Last summer Explore's Washington-based fund-raising adviser, Jack Hills, made an optimistic prediction: "I'd say a year from now, without giving you a bottom line, it should be quite obvious that the project is going to be built."
But it's not obvious at all.
Instead, Explore has been battered by bad news:
The cost of the road that will provide the sole access to Explore - the Roanoke River Parkway - has gone up so much that Rep. Jim Olin, D-Roanoke, has to go back to Congress next year to seek more funding just to build the 2\ -mile link to Explore.
Explore had hoped for up to $16 million in state funds in the 1990-92 state budget but Cranwell, the project's chief legislative backer, took credit for withholding the money, saying Explore hadn't raised enough private money to justify more state funding.
The unexpected cut-off of state funds has forced Explore to scale back its fund-raising goals even more. Cranwell said Explore needed to raise $4 million. So instead of being busy raising $16 million to match what they'd hoped to get from the legislature this time around, Explore planners are aiming substantially lower - to raise $4 million by late 1991 in hopes of meeting Cranwell's goal in time for the 1992 session.
The diminished prospect for state funding has forced Explore to narrow its focus. It still hopes to build the project described in its master plan - the world's largest zoo of North American animals built around the Lewis and Clark theme, a re-created Blue Ridge frontier town, another outdoor museum devoted to telling "the true story of the Native American."
But for a while, Explore planners seemed to be focusing their energies almost exclusively on the town, estimated to cost $27 million, whose crafts shops would generate the revenue needed to operate the rest of Explore.
Then, this spring, Explore - running low on money and running into opposition from preservationists - quit moving old buildings. Now it's mired in a variety of legal disputes with two of the men most responsible for moving them, the project's former master builder, Ren Heard, and his subcontractor, Gary Winkler.
Meanwhile, a Floyd County furniture maker who had been advising Explore on lining up crafts people to lease space in the town has quit, citing concerns with the project's lack of progress and its alleged disregard for historical authenticity.
"It seemed to me more should have been happening for the money that's been put into it," says Swede McBroom. "It should have been better planned from the outset. The historians who know what a town should be were only called in at the last minute and it seems were not listened to."
Now Explore appears to have put the town on the back burner and turned to an even smaller project - building a $5 million environmental research and conference center that supporters say could make Roanoke a world capital for conferences on environmental policy.
The environmentalists and Virginia Tech professors that Ewert is working with say Ewert envisions the center as the first facility at Explore, and a way to generate the funds necessary to build the rest of Explore.
Ewert says it's a natural fit, that Explore - with its emphasis on telling the story of how Virginians opened the continent - is an obvious place to teach visitors about "the Appalachian biosphere" and "the world's environmental crisis."
And true to Ewert's original vision nearly two decades ago, he has a name for the place: The Lewis and Clark Center.
The Kluge visit
Explore officials went all out when Albemarle County billionaire John Kluge, the nation's richest man, and his wife, Patricia, visited the valley last November. They gave him a helicopter tour over a Botetourt County tavern they hope to move to Explore, then walked the Kluges through the wooded park site. The tour was timed so that just as the Kluges were leaving, a scout troop was arriving - so that Ewert could go into a pitch on Explore's educational function.
Despite the elaborate presentation, the Kluges, who now are separated, haven't donated.
And some supporters are voicing concern about why Explore hasn't been able to bring in big contributions.
"I have had some concerns recently because I think the amount of money they need to raise is large and we haven't seen any successes yet beyond what has been raised locally," Dalhouse says. "We're clearly at a watershed and I sincerely hope we get past it. I think Explore has 18 to 24 months and then it'll have to change directions."
But fund-raising adviser Hills - whose full-time job is vice president for development at the presitigous Brookings Institution - says that the past year has been a case of "what might have been" for Explore.
He says if it weren't for three things, Explore might have had the money to be starting construction of the Blue Ridge Town right now:
First the Virginia economy went soft, putting a squeeze on the state budget, which didn't help Explore's case for state money.
Now New York is suffering from a severe regional recession, making it difficult for Explore - or anyone else for that matter - to raise money from the major donors headquartered in that important money center.
And finally, Hill says, bad publicity in Roanoke - specifically in the Roanoke Times & World-News - has cost the project money.
"Headlines may not reach beyond the valley," Hills says, "but they impact what you can raise locally and that impacts what you can raise from the Ford Foundation" - because one of the first questions potential national givers ask is how the local community is supporting the project.
"If the state economy had remained strong, if the Northeast economy had remained strong and if the negative feelings [in the valley] hadn't surfaced, it would have been on a roll now," Hill says. "If you look at those three things, it would have been on a roll. It still could."
Dalhouse adds his own thoughts on why Explore hasn't raised more money.
It's a complicated concept, for one thing, he says. "If the Explore concept could be articulated in such a way as to be grasped by the majority of citizens in this region, it would be strongly and vigorously supported," he says. However, "it's not just a zoo, it's not a Disney-like amusement park, it's not a preservation-type display. It's more than any of those things and that causes people to be confused."
Secondly, Dalhouse believes Explore needs professional fund-raisers. "Bern Ewert is one of the most effective spokesman for this project you could possibly have," Dalhouse says, "but it's probably a mistake they have not yet hired a professional fund-raising organization. Bern is a very capable guy, but he has no experience at tapping national sources of funds."
In the past, though, Ewert has said Explore couldn't afford to hire a professional fund-raiser.
The out-of-town supporters Explore has lined up are somewhat mystified at the controversy the project continues to generate in the Roanoke Valley.
"They could use some postive publicity," says Rupert Cutler, who heads the Washington-based Defenders of Wildlife. "They've been hurting. They haven't gotten the local enthusiasm. I don't know why."
Much of it may stem from the way Explore was introduced five years ago - as the creation of a private foundation run by a handful of Roanoke's most influential businessmen.
Doug Cruickshanks, a banker who served as the River Foundation's first president before moving to Richmond, once said he had hoped Roanoke would rally behind Explore the way another unlikely little city - Green Bay, Wis. - has supported a pro football team, the Packers.
Instead, Explore has been a political football, sometimes a divisive one that plays on the valley's long-standing skepticism of big-ticket projects and the class consciousness lingering in this one-time railroad town.
Just two weeks ago, state Sen. Granger Macfarlane, D-Roanoke, opened a new round of public debate on Explore by warning that Explore is so expensive that it endangers state funding for other Roanoke Valley projects - a contention strongly disputed by Cranwell and others. Roanoke County supervisors shot back that Explore is very much one of their priorities and they want Macfarlane to work for state funding.
But before Explore goes back to the legislature for more state funding, it must first raise more private money - and on that score, Explore is about where it was last year this time.
"I think with constant persistence, this thing is going to break," Hills says. "I'm not sure I want you to quote me saying in a year, it'll be obvious, but it may be. At some point it will snowball, hopefully within the next 12 months."
by CNB