Metro Pulse/Insights/Universe Knoxville

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by Joe Sullivan

While Universe Knoxville's demise comes as a keen disappointment to me, I can accept County Executive Mike Ragsdale's decision to abandon it. Developers Worsham Watkins were reportedly looking for several million dollars in additional planning money atop the $101 million that Knox County had previously committed to the project, and Worsham Watkins had also fallen short in raising the $1.5 million in annual private contributions on which the county's commitment was based. Moreover, it's understood that Ragsdale's recent visit to the Rose Center of Earth and Space in New York City (after which Universe Knoxville was to be patterned) left him skeptical about the project's ability to draw the 800,000 visitors a year needed to cover its $101 million in bond financing.

What's totally unacceptable to me is the abandonment of the elements of Universe Knoxville that are much needed in this community: namely, a planetarium and, even more so, a children's discovery center worthy of the name. Forget the grand design that was supposed to draw visitors to Knoxville from all over the Eastern United States, but for goodness sake preserve the concept, albeit on a smaller scale, for the benefit of East Tennesseans.

Just about every city of comparable size in Knoxville's environs has a facility of this sort that puts our poor excuse for a discovery center to shame. Asheville's Pack Place, Birmingham's McWane Center, Charlotte's Discovery Place, Chattanooga's Creative Discovery Museum, Memphis's Pink Palace, and Nashville's Cumberland Science Museum all fit this profile. The 30-year-old Cumberland Science Museum is perhaps the least among them. But no less of an authority than my daughter attests to the appeal of its more recently added, hands-on exhibitory. My five-year old grandson was enthralled by its Adventure Tower for exploration of the human body and is begging to go back.

While Worsham Watkins was concentrating on the virtual reality space extravaganza that was to have been Universe Knoxville's centerpiece, others were addressing plans for a Museum and Science Center that was to be housed within it. A collaboration between Jim Begalla, on behalf of the East Tennessee Discovery Center, and Mike Dobrogosz, who heads TVA's museum, produced a preliminary design concept that envisioned some 30 exhibits requiring about 30,000 square feet of space. The theme of the exhibitory is "to discover the history, science and energy of the Tennessee Valley region," but it also encompasses everything from a wandering robot who interacts with visitors to an exploding volcano and the formation of a tornado. Begalla estimates the total cost of the exhibitory at $6 million to $8 million.

As for a planetarium component, those who've recently built one insist a virtual reality space experience can be provided for a whole lot less than Universe Knoxville-sized numbers. At Wichita's Exploration Place, which opened in 2000, the Boeing Cyber Dome Theater offers "immersive interactivity" with 30 models of the planets. Its president, Al Sena, reckons that such a facility could be replicated for on the order of $3 million. He lauds its Digistar projection system for which the sky is by no means the limit on the types of shows it can produce.

After allowing for entrance halls, administrative offices, a gift shop, and the like, a 60,000 square foot building might be needed to house all of the above. De Sena offers, as a rule of thumb, a $200 per square foot provision for construction costs (though Wichita went higher on its 100,000 square-foot facility because of what he terms "the community's desire for more noteworthy architecture.")

Adding up these figures leads to the back-of-the-envelope calculation that Knoxville could attain a representative discovery center, by whatever name, for about $25 million, after also allowing for architect and project management fees. Such a public sector commitment for a facility that would have enormous educational value as well as economic development benefits seems all the more reasonable when one bears in mind that Knox County is presently spending $18 million on an addition to the East Tennessee Historical Center.

Other cities have believed it to be a good investment also. Charlotte contributed $16 million in two stages, involving 1971 and 1991 dollars, to its Discovery Place. Sedgwick County, Kansas, contributed $20 million to Wichita's Exploration Place. In each case, the buildings are on publicly owned property that's leased to the not-for-profit entities that run the facilities for $1 a year.

Private philanthropy has also played a major role in funding these facilities, accounting for half the cost in Charlotte and over half in Wichita. In Birmingham, private donors starting with the McWane family contributed $30 million toward the $42 million McWane Center that opened there in 1998 (with the balance coming from the city, the county, and the state).

Last December, James Haslam II convened a gathering of some 300 of what traditionalists would call the city's business and civic leaders in the auditorium at Pilot Corp's headquarters. The occasion was a Universe Knoxville pep rally. But its purpose wasn't to raise money, only to marshal expressions of support to county commissioners prior to their December meeting that conditionally approved the county's $101 million funding package.

I believe another such convening is in order, this time aimed at launching a private fund raising campaign for something that is much needed here. Granted, there are presently (and always will be) other fund-raising campaigns underway here to meet other community needs. And Knoxville may not have as deep a set of philanthropic pockets as Birmingham or Chattanooga or, apparently, Wichita. But responsibility for supporting a worthy new discovery center should not rest with the public sector alone.

At the same time, County Commission should proceed with formation of a not-for-profit entity like the one that was due to govern Universe Knoxville. Appointment of a diverse and dedicated board is crucial for everything from planning the new facility and promoting it to overseeing its operation.

Annual attendance at counterpart centers, all of which are in downtown locations, ranges from 200,000 in Nashville to 250,000 in Birmingham and Wichita to almost 500,000 in Charlotte. That's enough to make a meaningful contribution to downtown vitality but not enough to cover full operating expenses from attendee revenues alone. As a rule of thumb, these revenues cover a little over half the costs, with the balance coming primarily from private sources. The $1.5 million annually that Universe Knoxville was supposed to get from private contributors is a good approximation of the need, and a new facility's leadership must succeed in fulfilling it where Universe Knoxville's promoters failed to do so.