By Nancy Correro
The Times of SWLA
As we know, Lake Charles’s lakefront is slated for a facelift, but what some residents may not know is there is a possibility that the lakefront will also be host to a National Hurricane Museum and Science Center. While the Museum is still in the developmental stages, it has been moving forward at a steady pace since 2002 according to Jill Kidder, Project Coordinator for the Creole Nature Trail. In 2005, they needed someone to get the project off the ground so they hired Jill Kidder as a contractor.“In 2003 the Creole Nature Trail received a grant and I wasn’t a part of it at that time. I didn’t come on until 2005. They received a grant from the National Scenic Highways Program to develop a Hurricane Audrey Memorial,” Kidder said.
Kidder and their group sent out a Request-for-Quote (RFQ) to designers and fourteen designers showed interest in doing an exhibit to memorialize Hurricane Audrey.
The RSQ was sent in June or July of 2005 and then Hurricane Rita hit in August and the designers were to have submitted by September 15th. Kidder’s team put everything on hold at that point.
“I told them we just can’t do anything right now. Our state is topsy-turvy and we don’t know what is going on so ‘ya’ll just hang in there with us and we’ll get back to this.’ They all came back to us later, the exhibit designers, and said, ‘look, ya’ll have got to think bigger than this. We understand that ya’ll are in a position right now that you don’t want to think about this, but you are going to have to later.’ And why not Southwest Louisiana. So that is what we did,” Kidder said.
They did some research on a National scale to see if there was anything like a Hurricane Museum and, it turns out, there is not. They started talking about expanding the Hurricane Audrey project and talking to people who work on these types of projects.
“So we received 14 proposals and we narrowed them down to the top five. Those top five exhibit designers came in from all across the country and shared with us their suggestions and we chose a firm, did a master plan, began formulating how this could all work, formed a 501c3 [non-profit organization], and began developing the 501c3. Most museums establish themselves that way so that they can receive donations and grant funding,” Kidder said.
They started garnering state, federal, and local support as well as grants and one for $1.36 million for the design of the exhibits.
“After we developed a master plan, we then decided it was time to go out and get some schematic designs for the facility so we could sell this to somebody. We didn’t have any pretty pictures,” said Kidder.
The Hurricane Center did some research, and also wrote a grant to hire fundraising consultants. In 2008, the consultants began helping them with more development and a fundraising plan. At the same time, the design group began to develop a program of work for the museum, a storyline that would show how the museum exhibits work together.
“We want to have a lot of hands-on exhibits for the kids, and have them show interest in the maths and sciences that lead to these weather related phenomena. So the question is, how do you do that? What does it look like and feel like? How will they flow through the museum? So that is what the designers are doing,” said Kidder.
The designers came up with concepts that they then tested on focus groups in five major cities across the country: Houston, Atlanta, Mobile, New York, and Chicago.
The artisan drawings on the Hurricane Museum’s website are some of the ideas the design team has come-up with after their research, but those are only the drawings they have so far.
“What we put up there has been tested. And certainly that is not final. Those are drawings where we said, ‘if we had something that looked like this, would you be interested?’ Now, we may not be able to do all of that. It all depends on how much money is raised for this project,” said Kidder.
In May, the Hurricane Museum and Science Center (NHMSC) began conversations with America’s Wetland Discovery Center to merge their projects and it looked like from the conversations that what would happen is The National Hurricane Museum would be the surviving entity and America’s Wetland Discovery Center would become a part of the National Hurricane Museum.
“You really can’t tell one story without the other. The merger is still in the works. We are still working through merger documents and articles have to be approved and bylaws and all of that. We are just working through all of the details,” said Kidder.
The city council has approved to change or amend the property agreement that they had with America’s Wetland Discovery Center so that if these two organizations do merge then it will be transferable over to the National Hurricane Museum. There were a lot of similarities between the two projects. The America Wetland Discovery Center and the National Hurricane Museum both had the idea of educational rooms, a big theatre, a cafe, and a ticketing booth.
“It didn’t seem right for us all to be going along the same path trying to raise money and ultimately compete for visitors in the end. So, we saw it as a great opportunity for us to come together, and it was spearheaded by the vision of the mayor and the America Wetlands Discovery Center. We are fortunate they wanted to come and join forces with us,” Kidder said.
The project is on hold at the moment as the merger takes place and the designers do more research. They want to do some funding feasibility work and they want to go out and show some people who may be interested in funding the project to see if they would be interested in supporting it.
“We’ve hired a company to do the demand analysis and the financial feasibility work and to write a business plan for us that will help us update our master plan for the project that would include America’s Wetland Discovery Center,” said Kidder.
The center’s first phase will be a memorial project in Louisiana’s Southwest corner in Cameron. The larger museum and science center’s location is slated for the Lake Charles downtown and lakefront area along Interstate 10.
“We have often talked about the fact that the genesis for this project was the Audrey Memorial and we feel like there should be a memorial concept developed. Our Creole Nature Trail is what got this whole thing started and it runs through Calcasieu and Cameron Parish. We’ve always wanted to do something in both parishes. So we feel that if our research continues to come back and say that that is a viable option then that is what needs to happen and we certainly will do that,” Kidder said.
The completion date is not known at this time simply because the project is still in the planning stages.
“This is a big project and a long project. It’s going to take time,” said Kidder. “We’ll better know [the completion date] sometime after this research comes back and our business plan is complete, but at this point I’d hate to give any kind of indication of a completion date or even the size of it. We just really want to be careful and make the right decisions for the project.”
If you would like to view the artist renderings and watch the project as it unfolds through the online timeline, go to: www.nhmsc.org.
