Donations prompt area museums to augment facilities, programs

Business Report Correspondent

BOULDER — A nearly $8 million bequest from the Christiansen family to the Boulder Historical Society has prompted its board of directors to begin planning a museum expansion.

“We’re at the point of trying to plan,´ said Jim Swaeby, president of the museum’s board of directors and an associate broker with The Colorado Group of Boulder. “We’re not really sure what the museum will look like.”

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Several more million dollars will be needed to build and maintain the new museum, said Deanne Butterfield, recently appointed museum director.

The capital campaign, beginning in fall 2002, will consist of donations from individuals and the business community and grants from the National Endowment for Humanities, Butterfield said. The exact amount will depend on the museum site and which people or businesses it selects as partners, she added.

The city owns the historic Harbeck Home, 1206 Euclid Ave, the museum’s current home. Butterfield said the museum will probably continue to manage the house after the new building is completed in fall 2003. “It may be used as some kind of public-use facility for meetings or weddings,” she said. “It’s a beautiful house, but it wasn’t designed as a museum; it was designed as a home.”

Space constraints limit museum staff from displaying more of its 4,000 pieces of clothing, for example. “At any one time, we are only able to exhibit half a dozen (pieces),” Butterfield said. The other potential exhibits are stored in a warehouse because there’s no room at the Harbeck Home.

As for the new facility’s focus, ideas range from a national sports hall of fame to a costume museum. “There are so many different directions we could go,” Butterfield said. “At the history museum, there are so many stories to tell.”

The museum’s board of directors will gauge what makes sense. “We’ve done surveys and will continue to talk with people,” she said.

Swaeby hopes businesses will want to partner with the museum to share historical items and preserve history. “The business community is part of Boulder’s history,” he said. “We will want to be saving things that 50 or 200 years from now will be of interest to the general public. One way is having partnerships with businesses.”

The board is considering sites in the Canyon Cultural Corridor. “People roll their eyes when I say I want to be in central Boulder,” Butterfield said. “We want to represent the history of Boulder, and we want to be in a location that will be accessible.”

Accessibility also motivated Collage Children’s Museum to plan a move. That and $2.2 million worth of donated land from the Central Area General Improvement District. Currently located at 2065 30th St. behind Target, the museum will share a civic space site at 9th Street and Canyon Boulevard with the Village Arts Coalition.

Leslie Durgin, newly appointed museum director and former Boulder mayor, estimated the building will cost about $6.5 million. Durgin said a capital campaign to raise the funds will begin as soon as the city approves the site review proposal, which will be submitted in early April. “We have a capital campaign committee,” Durgin said, “and we just hired a director of development, Cathy Swanson, last week. We’ve really only just started.”

Durgin anticipated that donations from individuals, foundations and corporations will fund building costs and new exhibits. “We’ve created a system of naming opportunities for exhibits or portions of the building,” she said, “depending on the size of the contribution.”

The new facility is being built in conjunction with the Village Arts Coalition, consisting of 30 folk-dance groups. The coalition will occupy 12,900 square feet on the third floor of the building, and Collage will have 25,100 square feet on the first and second floors. The building should be completed in three years, Durgin said.

Underground parking will help preserve 4,240 square feet of outdoor space. Construction for the 656 parking spaces will begin in August.

“It will have a whole different focus with different exhibits,” Durgin said. “It will be a real expansion for creativity, scientific exploration, and hopefully, we’ll partner with CU for science.”

The museum currently occupies 5,300 square feet of rented space tucked in a shopping plaza. “It’s not airy, light or integrated into the community,” Durgin said. “I mean, it’s in a shopping plaza.”

The new site, in the Canyon Cultural Corridor, will be closer to resources vital to the museum’s new programs. “We’ll be able to do exploring programs on the creek,” Durgin said, “or link with the library. It’s exciting. Here, kids and families have the opportunity for interactive learning, being creative, experimenting and learning about the world in a way that’s different from the classroom.”

The high-end St. Julien Hotel also will occupy the land. The hotel, however, is further along in the process, planning to break ground in August 2002.

According to city council, the area at 9th Street and Canyon Boulevard has been slated an urban renewal area since October 1988. It is partially owned by St. Julien Partners, developer of the hotel, and the Central Area Improvement District, which donated the space for Collage Children’s Museum.