NLR museum floats growth plans

Maritime attraction needs more space, proponents say

The governing board of the North Little Rock Maritime Museum, which floats on the Arkansas River next to the Main Street bridge that connects Little Rock and North Little Rock, wants more space.
The governing board of the North Little Rock Maritime Museum, which floats on the Arkansas River next to the Main Street bridge that connects Little Rock and North Little Rock, wants more space.

The Arkansas Inland Maritime Museum in North Little Rock can display only a small percentage of its collection and is ready to expand, said museum Director Greg Zonner.

Since the museum's opening in 2005 after the acquisition of the World War II USS Razorback submarine, additions have included artifacts from the Pearl Harbor-surviving USS Hoga tugboat, the Battleship Arkansas, the nuclear missile cruiser Arkansas, the Arkansas River Historical Museum and a submarine reference library that includes "stuff the Navy doesn't have," Zonner said.

"We've outgrown our pants," Zonner said. "It's too small now. We could do a lot more, but we need more space."

The museum's governing board agrees, with a concept being explored to expand the museum, which now floats on the Arkansas River next to Main Street Bridge. Improvements could include a larger museum, classroom facilities, a theater for presentations to school groups, a snack bar and museum store.

Discussions are underway for the board to possibly purchase a former river casino -- a 320-foot-by-54-foot barge that already houses a building -- that would create a more aesthetically pleasing riverfront attraction, said Steve Owen, a museum board member who serves as a board spokesman.

"It's all preliminary. We're in the looking stages," Owen said. "We need to make this footprint look more desirable from an aesthetic standpoint."

The estimated cost would be about $1.5 million, Owen said, money that would be raised privately to purchase the barge, relocate it and retrofit it to replace the barges that now house the current museum and office portions adjacent to the submarine.

Turning down visitors

The maritime museum has the numbers to warrant expansion, said Bob Major, the North Little Rock Visitors Bureau executive director, who is also a maritime museum board member.

Visitor sign-ins include all 50 states and 82 countries, according to the museum's figures.

In 2014, the museum drew 21,664 visitors, including school groups, birthday parties, overnight stays on the submarine and special events, according to museum statistics. Of that number, 3,601 were from among 117 school groups, including some from surrounding states.

"Those groups were from all around the state and a lot were from outside the state," Owen said. "The last five or six groups we've had for overnights have all been from outside of Arkansas."

School students are more involved in and willing to learn about history if they can "see it, touch it, feel it" by visiting the museum and the submarine, instead of sitting in a classroom being lectured about the same topic, Owen said.

"This is not like other museums where they say, 'If you build it, and they will come,'" Owen said. "In this instance, we have too many people coming to see us, which is a good problem to have. We're having to turn down military groups and reunions. It kills me when we have to say no."

With a larger facility, the museum would be able host such events as a military reunion or conference. The North Little Rock Visitors Bureau also could collaborate with the Little Rock Convention and Visitors Bureau to attract tourism to downtown riverfront attractions on both sides of the river.

"We feel like with a modern, larger footprint for the museum, we can work with Little Rock to bring in military groups," Major said. "A lot of local people just don't realize what we have here. Foreign visitors come here a lot because they come to the area for the Clinton Library [in Little Rock], but they're then attracted by the submarine and they come over here to visit."

More NLR funds?

North Little Rock Mayor Joe Smith said he is also on board with the city becoming more financially supportive of the museum. That would contrast with previous plans to reduce the city's annual contribution by $25,000 over a five-year period. The city budgeted $150,000 for the museum this year, a decrease from $175,000 in 2014.

"We realize now that we're not going to reach that goal for them to be completely self-sufficient," Smith said. "This museum probably has more impact on our economy than the [Burns Park] golf course does. Ninety-eight [percent] of the people who play golf at Burns Park are local, whereas maybe 90 percent of those who go to the submarine are tourists.

"We realize that after seeing the numbers of the amount of visitors from all over the world that come there and the economic impact it has, I think it's earned our support. With those numbers and the success that we're having, I feel like it's our duty to continue that and make it better."

A maritime museum expansion, Smith added, is separate from reported discussions for an arts center/museum complex in North Little Rock's downtown that would be supported by private donations and a city sales-tax increase, if approved by voters. No project has been announced, but a phone survey commissioned by the Arkansas Arts Center Foundation in Little Rock recently was completed to gauge voter support for a tax increase.

The Hoga's Future

The maritime museum's fundraising for a new facility is actually a twofold effort, Owen said. The fundraising committee began in 2011 to raise money to move the Hoga tug from the West Coast to North Little Rock. Combined, about $2.5 million would be needed to expand the museum and to make the Hoga part of it, Owen said.

The city beat out four other groups in 2005 for the right to preserve the Hoga, which has been designated as a National Historic Landmark for its actions during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. The boat was later a fireboat for the city of Oakland.

North Little Rock owns the boat and took possession in August 2012, but it has been unable to move the boat to Arkansas because of towing requirements and the cost.

The museum needs to include the Hoga on a ship that is bringing other cargo toward the Gulf of Mexico to keep the price around $1 million, Owen said. Shipping the Hoga alone would cost about $2 million, he said.

"We want a tow of opportunity to drastically get the price down," Owen said.

After several years of trying, 2015 could be the make-or-break year for the Hoga, Major said.

"We need to have it here," Major said. "If we can't get it here this year, I think we'll have to reconsider. I think it will be a very difficult decision and an emotional one to say we're not able to get it here. It's too early right now to give up on it."

Owen agreed.

"It's a fish or cut bait year for us," he said. "The board has given a 110 percent effort to get it here. If, after this year, we don't have it, we need to have some serious discussion about it."

But the Hoga isn't make or break for the museum's plans, Zonner said.

"The maritime museum is growing," Zonner said. "If we're to make that decision on the Hoga, it would not affect the maritime museum at all."

Metro on 02/22/2015

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