Group pursuing Henderson museum has its first meeting

By Jeremy Twitchell (contact)

Thursday, April 30, 2009 | 1:59 a.m.

LAS VEGAS SUN

Ray Shubinski takes the floor and asks the group of Henderson politicians, city officials and residents if they’ve heard the day’s big news.

More swine flu cases? No, Shubinski says.

Sen. Arlen Spector changing political affiliation? He shakes his head no.

Unable to contain himself anymore, Shubinski excitedly tells the group — the Henderson Space and Science Center Board of Directors — that astronomers on this day have photographed the most distant object ever detected: a gamma ray burst from an exploding star 13 billion light years from earth.

If the board, which met for the first time Wednesday, is able to achieve the city’s vision of building a space and science center in Henderson, more Southern Nevadans may share Shubinski’s enthusiasm for science.

“That’s the stuff I love and the stuff that I hope will be a part of this facility,” said Shubinski, a museum consultant retained by the city to guide the board through the process of creating a museum.

Mayor James B. Gibson said the city hopes to build a center that will appeal to children and open their minds.

“We have an opportunity to partner with the Clark County School District in a way, we feel, that will really make a difference,” he said. “We can create an environment where teachers can get kids involved, get them thinking about these things on their own.”

At the first meeting, the 10-member board took the oath of office and city staff members explained the community survey and museum study behind the city’s plan. Six of the board members are from the community; the remaining four are Henderson officials or employees — Gibson, Councilman Jack Clark, City Attorney Shauna Hughes and Finance Director Steve Hanson.

All four will leave the city in the coming weeks. Gibson and Clark are term limited and Hughes and Hanson have accepted the city’s buyout offer to veteran employees to cut costs.

Shubinski said the next steps are to create a non-profit entity to handle fundraising, then flesh out the details of what exhibits and features the group wants to see in the center. He also presented differing strategies for the public/private partnership the city hopes to form to build and operate the museum.

Much of the work to be done now will require the group to venture into unknown territory.

“We’ve taken on lots of wonderful projects in the city and succeeded in them, but this is our first endeavour like this,” Gibson said.

The study the city commissioned last year placed the cost of building the center at $61 million and its annual operating expenses at $6.4 million, about $2.5 million of which would need to come from outside sources each year. That means the group will have to figure out a way not just to raise funds for the center’s construction but to keep it going.

“The challenge here is, how do you provide an institution with the kind of splash and flash that you want, while at the same time providing it with long-term sustainability financially?,” Shubinski said.

City officials have said the city will commit some funds to the museum’s construction, but when and how much has not been determined.

The city has $25 million in a land fund that is tabbed for park and recreation purposes that it could use and other potential funding sources have been identified as well.

The center will be built on a 150-acre site the city owns on Galleria Drive east of U.S. 95. In a tentative plan the City Council has adopted, the museum would be part of a civic core on the site, and about half of the land would be sold to private developers for residential, commercial and mixed uses.

Gibson said the city’s ability to sell the land and guide the site’s development will hinge upon the space and science center.

“Our feeling is that we need to lead out so that there is a certain amount of predictability as to what we’re going to put in that civic space,” Gibson said.

Clark, who has been pushing for some type of science center in Henderson for much of his 16 years in office, said attracting business and development partners will be key to the city’s plan.

“The more things that are going on in this site, the more synergy we have, the greater our chances of success,” he said.