LeMay car museum: Bring on the bulldozers
THE NEWS TRIBUNE
The LeMay Automobile Museum is about as impressive as it could possibly be – without actually existing.
It has the collection: hundreds of fascinating, historically significant cars assembled by the late Harold E. LeMay.
It has a stellar board of directors led by Michael Phillips, chairman of the Russell Investment Group.
It has a near-perfect, freeway-visible site on what is now Tacoma Dome parking. Last month, it exercised its option to acquire that real estate from the City of Tacoma – a key commitment to get on with construction.
And according to CEO David Madeira, it has raised the equivalent of $49 million, including the nine acres of Tacoma Dome parking.
Nearly everything’s in place for the bulldozers to begin work.
But before that can happen, the museum and City Council must modify their original agreement, which anticipated a more ambitious sequence of development.
The museum’s commitment five years ago was to start by building what is now called the museum’s pavilion – the chief showcase for the LeMay collection – at a cost of at least $40 million in cash.
Despite the impressive fund-raising to date, the organization isn’t ready to finance that enormous structure. So it is seeking permission to stage construction by beginning with a more modest $25 million “collector’s center” that would be a major museum and tourist attraction all by itself.
In return, the city would be released from two expensive promises of its own: to replace the parking displaced by the museum’s construction and build a $1.6 million plaza. The staged sequence and new design won’t displace nearly as much parking, and the plaza isn’t in the blueprints anymore.
To all appearances – the details have to be scrutinized, of course – it’s a good deal both for the city and the museum.
Above all, it would let the work get started this winter.
Phillips and Madeira say there’s some urgency about the groundbreaking. The LeMay museum could turn into one of the finest in the world – “America’s Car Museum” is how it’s being billed. LeMay’s car collection is stunning enough to sustain the hype.
So why build it in Tacoma, of all places? Why not someplace in the middle of the United States, more convenient to the millions of car aficionados in eastern states?
Some members of the museum’s board may be asking themselves that question, Phillips and Madeira say. But when the bulldozers are unleashed, the Tacoma site will be a done deal. All the more reason to unleash them as soon as possible.
