After several years of capital fund-raising, the National Museum of the Great Lakes plans to add about 5,000 square feet to its East Toledo home beginning in the spring, museum officials said during a first-ever State of the Museum presentation Wednesday morning.
The new year will also mark a transition in the museum’s leadership, with Kate Fineske, now its senior director of institutional advancement, to be promoted to executive director Jan. 1.
Christopher Gillcrist, the current executive director, will become emeritus director and focus on “driving the museum’s historical programming,” according to a statement from the Great Lakes Historical Society, which operates the museum in a building leased from the Toledo-Lucas County Port Authority.
Ms. Fineske told the gathering of supporters, Maritime Academy of Toledo students, and other guests in the museum’s front theater area that the museum has raised just over $4 million of the $5.5 million it expects the expansion to cost, and more than 75 percent of that money has come from outside Lucas County.
The expansion, in development since 2019, is driven by the need for more space for both permanent and short-term exhibits and capacity to conduct more community-related programming, Mr. Gillcrist said.
In 2019, he and Ms. Fineske said, it was expected to cost $3.8 million, but a sharp increase in construction prices since the coronavirus pandemic has inflated the estimate.
“We have so many more stories to share, but not nearly enough space to share them,” Mr. Gillcrist said.
Museum attendance has grown robustly since Metroparks Toledo’s Glass City Metropark opened its second phase next door, with 30,000 admissions projected this year and growth to 42,000 annually forecast within five to seven years.
Since the park’s expansion opened, the museum has experienced a 46 percent increase in visitors, a 22 percent increase in admission revenue, 54 percent growth in on-site membership sales, and 18 percent growth in gift-shop purchases, according to historical society data.
“It’s a world-class riverfront park, and one of our closest allies,” Ms. Fineske said, remarking that park visitors are drawn to the museum while the park entices museum members to explore more of Toledo.
The historical society moved its museum out of cramped quarters in Vermilion, Ohio as a result of conversations between Mr. Gillcrist and Paul LaMarre III, who in 2006 became the port authority’s caretaker for the then-S.S. Willis B. Boyer after the city of Toledo surrendered the ship after declaring inability to pay for its upkeep.
The historical society initially studied the possibility of moving to neighboring Lorain, but when that idea foundered, Mr. LaMarre suggested the vacant building on the Toledo waterfront, which the port authority had built using federal funds designated for ferry terminals.
The museum’s move there gave the port authority a tenant, solved the museum’s space problem, and gave the Boyer, rechristened after cosmetic restoration to its original name, S.S. Col. James M. Schoonmaker, a home.
Continuing support from historical society members who live in the Cleveland area has been vital to the museum’s success, society officials said. Prominent among them are Larry and Karen Betcher, Vermilion residents who successfully provided a $1 million challenge-match donation to the capital fund drive that will pay for much of the planned expansion, Ms. Fineske said.
They and others “didn’t need to live in Toledo to understand the value of this museum and its mission,” Ms. Fineske said.
The museum has gotten corporate support as well from Cleveland-Cliffs, a major steel-industry customer of Great Lakes shipping, and Interlake Maritime Services, operator of Interlake Steamship Co. Its president, Mark W. Barker, is chairman of the historical society’s board.
The capital budget also includes two appropriations totaling $900,000 from Ohio’s state budgets for fiscal 2017 and 2021.
According to society data, more than 60 percent of society members live outside Lucas County, and more than 60 percent of its visitors also come from elsewhere.
More than 70 percent of the people who spend more than an hour at the museum also spend at least one night in a local hotel, those data show, and visitors have come from 30 countries as well as all 50 states.
Mr. LaMarre, now vice chairman of the Great Lakes Historical Society’s board as well as director of the Port of Monroe, said the museum also has thrived because of the story-telling nature of its exhibits, which engages visitors.
“Stuff is not enough,” he said. “It needs to be an experience. It needs to get you in your heart.”
Mr. Gillcrist, the historical society’s executive director since 1999, has commuted from Vermilion to head the museum in its current digs since it opened there in 2014.
He said his new role will allow him to do more of the historical research and programming that appeal to him the most as a historian. Ms. Fineske will fully take over administrative functions, including fund-raising that is her strong suit.
“I have complete faith in her ability to take us to the next level,” Mr. Gillcrist said.
Ellen Kennedy, now director of education and visitor experience, will become director of museum operations, and the museum plans to hire several new staff to support its expansion.
The museum receives about 35 percent of its operating revenue from admissions, gift shop sales, and other “earned” sources, 15 percent from memberships, and 50 percent from donations.
The expansion space is to be built out on the building’s north side and connect to the pilothouse from the St. Mary’s Challenger freighter, which the museum received after that lake vessel was converted into a barge.
The pilothouse, already being renovated, will be accessible to all museum visitors in a way the Schoonmaker’s pilothouse cannot accommodate, Ms. Fineske noted.
Holly Kemler, the port authority’s spokesman, said no action by that agency’s board of directors is required for the museum to add space to the port-owned building.
The port leased it to the museum in 2012 for 25 years plus five 5-year option terms. The lease provides for the museum to pay rent if its ticket revenue exceeds a certain threshold, but Ms. Kemler said that threshold has not been met.
Mr. LaMarre said that even its current status far exceeds what he had imagined when he and Mr. Gillcrist sketched out a possible layout for the Toledo location more than 15 years ago, and it’s poised for the future.
“That’s the goal: that the history lives on long after you are gone,” he said Wednesday afternoon.
First Published November 15, 2023, 4:52 p.m.
