THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, January 15, 1997 TAG: 9701150001
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A15 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Opinion
SOURCE: GLENN ALLEN SCOTT
LENGTH: 86 lines
The naysayers are right, thus far: all who predicted that Nauticus, the National Maritime Center, the $53 million science-and-techology attraction on Norfolk's downtown waterfront, would not - contrary to consultants' calculations - generate enough ticket, food and gift sales to sustain itself without aid from the taxpayers.
Nauticus' board asked City Council to make the semi-independent enterprise a municipal agency. Does that mean Nauticus has bombed?
Not exactly.
Norfolk already holds title to Nauticus, which it acquired upon agreeing to refinance the venture's debt. Adding Nauticus to the city structure places the facility wholly under the control of the city manager and City Council.
The Nauticus board becomes an advisory panel. In that role, it is freed to concentrate on procuring private-sector funding and sponsorship and working with City Hall to boost attendance and expand use of the facility by community groups and conventions and for weddings and other celebrations.
More than twice as many events - 179 - were staged at Nauticus in 1996 as in 1995; among these were a Dole/ Kemp political rally, a Navy chili-making contest, the kickoff of the Elizabeth River Project's waterway-cleansing initiative, a Coast Guard change of command, youth-group overnighters and musical performances.
But, of course, Norfolk taxpayers were told that Nauticus would lure enough sightseers - 850,000 a year - to cover operating expenses and pay off $35 million in bonds. By that measure, Nauticus is a bust.
Nauticus was also designed to be a symbol - preferably the symbol - of a resurgent Norfolk. It has not become that - not yet.
These disappointments are attributable in some degree to failure to build broad grass-roots support for the project from the beginning.
Some local residents signed on as charter members of Nauticus before it opened in the spring of 1994, but these supporters were subsequently ignored. Deft cultivation of Nauticus' champions would have yielded a core of ambassadors for the center. David T. Guernsey Jr., Nauticus' president and CEO since last January, ended the inattention to members.
After the vote to ask City Council to transform Nauticus into a city agency, board Chairman Peter G. Decker Jr. noted that Nauticus' status as a stand-alone project is an anomaly. No other municipality, it seems, looks to city-sponsored science-and-technology centers - or museums, concert halls, arenas - to be entirely self-supporting, as Norfolk City Hall expected Nauticus to be.
Virginia Beach subsidizes the Virginia Marine Science Museum. Hampton subsidizes the Hampton Air and Space Center. But Nauticus was sold to Norfolk taxpayers as a self-supporting enterprise, and there's the rub. When the Nauticus board turned to City Council for financial help, the I-told-you-so chorus was inevitable.
Pleas for aid reinforced the perception of Nauticus as a flop. Compelled again late last year to contemplate a request for more money, the board opted instead to have the city take over.
As a component of the mix of public facilities and amenities that Norfolk assembled over many years, Nauticus enhances downtown's appeal to performing- and visual-arts lovers, sports fans, fun-seekers and tourists and becomes, as Decker points out, part of downtown's success.
Nauticus counted fewer than 300,000 visitors in 1996, as in 1995, but 1996 gift-shop and restaurant revenues were up significantly over 1995. Unhappily, revenue from all sources was far from enough to keep Nauticus afloat. But Nauticus' value goes up when city parking-garage fees and city meal and room taxes paid by visitors is factored in.
Meanwhile, downtown is enticing investors. MacArthur Center is the most conspicuous evidence of that. The disclosure Monday that 146 apartments and 45 townhouses will be built between Duke and Boush streets is another.
MacArthur Center's developers could have opted for the green fields of Hampton Roads' young cities instead of cleared urban-renewal acreage. Nearly everyone who shops at the center will arrive by motor vehicle. So why Norfolk? Because, among other inducements, the developers find the evolving downtown to their taste.
Hampton Roads Rhinos promoter George Shinn also savors it. Whatever comes of the National Hockey League team he hopes to bring and the projected arena in which it would be based, more private-sector investment in downtown - for offices, shops, restaurants, apartments, condominiums, townhouses, hotels - is assured.
Even when Nauticus' shortfalls are factored in, downtown returns many more millions of dollars to the municipal treasury than it takes out. Downtown's fortunes - Norfolk's - seem destined to wax well into the 21st century. With improved marketing and fresh programs (the current exhibit of Titanic lore and artifacts is an example), Nauticus' numbers should improve too. MEMO: Mr. Scott is associate editor of the editorial page of The
Virginian-Pilot.