More than a decade has passed since the museum was first proposed for a site in Tacoma, and the project has evolved from a museum of regional interest contained in a single building to an attraction that will offer display, education and restoration as well as a gathering place for car enthusiasts from around the country.

Over the years, early projections of a date for the groundbreaking have changed, the design shifted to constructing the collectors car center before the flashy building shaped like the hood of a muscle car, and those raising funds for the project have faced unexpected difficulties – from a reluctance among some Pierce County donors to support the project, to a national economy that sputtered in the dust of a possible recession.

The project remains alive – and well. Support is growing among collectors. Manufacturers and corporations have begun to take notice, and the automotive press has been writing stories. A growing and diverse board of directors now includes members from sectors that include, among others, racing, publishing, insurance, collecting and investing.

And just as the building has evolved, so has the concept of what the LeMay – America’s Car Museum – represents outside Tacoma.

At the beginning, Harold and Nancy LeMay wanted a location to store, preserve and share their collection – verified by Guinness as the world’s largest in private hands, and comprising 2,490 vehicles from the classic Duesenberg to the everyday Chevy, from Cadillac to Corvette and from double-decker buses to the Nash Rambler.

Today, under the leadership of CEO David Madeira, vehicles from the LeMay regularly visit manufacturers’ expositions and meetings of classic-car collectors. Madeira has established Club Auto, a gathering place for dues-paying enthusiasts, which now operates clubhouses in Kirkland and in Lakewood, Colo. The LeMay board of directors has grown from a group of local supporters to include members nationwide and from Europe, from several car-related affinities and business sectors.

The end of the beginning

But still, some people in the South Sound wonder whatever happened to the LeMay Museum. Is it alive? Is it raising money? Will it be built?

In a blog entry, a News Tribune editorial writer recently outlined the current vision of the museum and grumbled, “If it ever gets off the ground.”

Madeira responded, in part, “What’s remarkable is that a small entity that in the year 2002 had a $30,000 bank account and less than 100 members now has raised $50 million including land; has 2,400 members in 45 states and four countries; an international board; and is close to breaking ground on a $25 million first phase. I dare you to show me another entity that has contemplated such an undertaking so young in its life.”

Arriving in 2002, Madeira found a city that supported building an art museum and a glass museum – thus draining some of the financial support he would need to raise a local base. He found a design that featured a car museum like that of most car museums – a box that contained a collection of old parked cars.

Eventually dissatisfied with the results of two major architectural firms, he settled on a bright California architect who had stepped from the world of corporate architecture to build his own shop.

Madeira realized that to attract the necessary funds to build a world-class museum, he must extend the reach of the LeMay beyond Western Washington. He sought out and built a board that now includes local luminaries as well as those from the automobile racing, publishing and service sectors and executives from manufacturers in Detroit.

He raised funds from corporations and foundations, and coupled his visits to collectors with presentations of how their financial participation would benefit both themselves and the hobby. Along with members of his board and staff, he met with the city to negotiate the design, location and future of the museum in Tacoma.

Today, three contractors who bid for the job have been selected to compete for final selection. The museum board will meet in Detroit on May 2, and along with selecting a final contractor, members will be asked to vote on a date to break ground on what now is a parking lot of the Tacoma Dome.

The end of the wait – and thus the real beginning of the museum – is nearer than ever before.

From there to here

In the beginning was a box. Later, there were several boxes. And when the architect listened to the people who cared about the LeMay Museum, there came a new design, something that resembled the hood scoop of a muscle car.

From that one building came the idea of a second. They called it the “collectors car center,” and the problem would be the public perception that it was something second best, a replacement.

At a City Council meeting last year, responding to rumors that the museum plan had become less than first proposed, Madeira proclaimed, “Baloney!”

This new design – with Phase 1 comprising the collectors center and a show field (a grassy area meant for display, rallies and gatherings), to be followed by Phase 2, the iconic hood scoop – would allow the project to more quickly begin construction, and the construction would attract supporters and quiet the doomsayers.

Madeira says that when complete, the Phase 1 building will in itself be the world’s largest car museum.

LeMay architect Alan Grant says the 190,000-square-foot building – 400 feet long, 45 feet high and 80 feet wide on two levels – will contain a formal display area for 100 cars; a cafe; a banquet facility; two large club rooms; storage for 600 museum-owned vehicles (which will be on view to the public); 80 private storage bays paid for by collectors; classrooms; a research library and administration area; a boardroom; and a retail shop, all tied to the 3.5-acre show field where clubs and collectors can gather to share their automobile romances.

Construction is expected to last 18 months.

Of five contractors who bid for the job, Grant says, “three came in at around $20 million, one at $35 million and another at $50 million.”

“We’ve got the price of the building down. We’ve worked on materials,” he says. “When we started to do Stage 1, it was first thought to be a storage building. The city said, ‘Stop. This is an international building. This is important to us.’ Initially it was an auxiliary building, secondary to the pavilion. Now it’s turned into much more a part of the campus.”

When complete – as early as 2011, depending on fundraising, or as late as 2017 – Phase 2 will offer the iconic pavilion featuring an expansive display arena, meeting areas and interactive elements allowing visitors to design, ride and enjoy vehicles in realities both physical and virtual.

Grant says that as the first stage evolved, the design began saving money – at least a third of the original cost per square foot.

Instead of 78 steel beams to support the roof – beams that would require welding and fireproofing – Grant will use heavy timber.

“A few miles away from the site,” he says, “we found a glue-laminated beam manufacturer. It’s better than steel. It probably saved a million dollars.”

He decided to use modules to fit the roof, unitized systems “we can assemble in days, not months. If the contractor can do it more quickly, it reduces the price. We went through every part of the building like that. We worked with the contractors, trying to understand how they could do it better for electrical, plumbing, mechanical and structural systems.”

He’s begun using a design program, Solid Works, used also in the aerospace and shipbuilding industries.

And if he was humbled back when he presented those first boxes to an unimpressed Tacoma crowd, back when he worked for an international architectural firm, he remains on a certain professional edge.

“I think it’s a little scary at times,” Grant says. “You’re put on the spot to follow through on all the things you’ve been saying. A big company – it doesn’t really matter if you fail. Now, you really have to know what you’re doing. You can’t make a single mistake. It’s that hard.”

He’s completed the design documents for both the collectors center and the pavilion. He says he’s ready for moving earth.

“You can talk about great design ideas, but there comes a point when you’ve got to stop talking, and build it,” Grant says.

Show us the money

Visit the nonprofit watchdog Web site Charity Navigator, and America’s Car Museum doesn’t fare well.

In its most current rating, the organization gives the museum one star out of four, which means the charity “Fails to meet industry standards and performs well below most charities in its Cause.”

The Glass Museum rates two stars and the Tacoma Art Museum three.

“If you’re not spending your money on a program, they’ll give you a zero,” Madeira responds. “They can mislead people. People have every right to look at our 990s (an IRS form required to be made public by nonprofit agencies). Our audits are good. This isn’t anything for us to be ashamed of. We don’t have a museum yet. We’re going to spend our money to promote the museum – and build a museum. Once we build a museum, we’ll expand our programs. We didn’t think about how we would look to groups like that.”

Watchdogs such as Charity Navigator don’t give sufficient attention to a capital campaign, Madeira says.

Stuart Grover of Tacoma, chairman emeritus of The Collins Group, a Northwest fundraising consultancy, agrees.

“When you’re in a capital campaign, every organization always looks crummy on its 990,” he says. “It’s the bane of my existence. Because of the way it’s accounted for on the 990, it always looks like the most expensive form of fundraising.”

Grover hasn’t met with Madeira and has no direct knowledge of the museum’s fundraising techniques. But he knows what Madeira faces from certain watchdogs.

“They’re not going to look good,” he says. “It has nothing to do with the efficiency of their fundraising. It has nothing to do with ethical concerns.”

The latest Form 990 filed by the LeMay show expenses of $2.8 million and just over $1 million in program services. The museum declared $824,042 for management and general expenses and $958,789 spent on fundraising. Except for Madeira, who earned a salary of $198,544 and benefits totaling $30,057, no director received a salary or other reimbursement.

Total expenses included salaries for staff – the chief operating officer at $152,958, chief of advancement at $78,856, an events manager, a collection manager and other workers – plus payments to an exhibit designer and a printer, and such miscellaneous costs as telephone, postage, travel and taxes.

Are the books well-kept?

Ken Ristine is senior program officer at Tacoma’s Ben B. Cheney Foundation. This year, the foundation will provide $3 million in charitable donations. Between 1975 and 2006, the foundation provided $66.5 million to 1,172 organizations in Washington, Oregon and Northern California.

In the early rounds of fundraising, the foundation gave $500,000 to the LeMay effort.

“Our board has been supportive of the museum, and made a significant grant,” Ristine says.

“The organization that is there today has grown and matured a lot from when we made our original grant. We keep getting reports. We do keep an eye on it. We are satisfied that they have been tending to their knitting.” Philanthropy

Paul Miller, a member of the LeMay board and a formerly a member of the Tacoma City Council, says he and his family have made donations in the six figures to the museum.

Miller was also a member of the committee that founded the effort to build a glass museum in Tacoma nearly 20 years ago.

“From the inception on the Glass Museum to the actual ribbon-cutting was about 12 years,” he says. “For the car museum, we’re sitting at about 8½ years. I’d say we’re right on track.”

Miller notes that just as Nancy LeMay has already given $15 million to the museum honoring her husband, so did South Sound philanthropist George Russell offer generous support to the Museum of Glass.

“The art museum was an existing institution with a strong donor base, and didn’t have to spend as much time gathering that donor base and a board,” he adds.

The LeMay entered the fundraising scene behind several extant efforts. The LeMay effort arrived as other groups and interests were making their own entreaties to sources of support, and the city, for its part, had offered resources to Union Station, the University of Washington Tacoma and the Greater Tacoma Convention & Trade Center.

“We’ve invested a lot in this community in the last 15 years,” Miller says. “That’s been a strain. Tacoma never has had a substantial depth to its philanthropic capacity.”

Among local givers, he says, “I don’t think we’ve seen the large, private donors step to the plate in Tacoma – but I’d be the last person to say they should. Sometimes we look at those same individuals over and over. If there’s a disappointment, it’s that I haven’t seen the next generation of individuals. Where is that next generation of philanthropists?”

“I think the city itself has stepped up to be a partner,” Madeira says. “They want to work with us. They’ve given us the land. They want to work on retail.”

Not everywhere in town, however, has he found a warm welcome.

“As soon as I hit the ground and started talking to business leaders, they said, ‘You have to go elsewhere. We have the Glass Museum, the Tacoma Art Museum, the Boys & Girls Club,’ ” Madeira says.

“I find it disappointing. When you’re trying to build a project of international scope, you really need the help of the community to demonstrate to the outside world that there is support. There are key franchises that have been with us from the beginning, but it could be wider and deeper. We do know that it’s tough for donors to be hit over the head, over and over. But this is a big deal, and we need help locally.”

The museum will continue to rely on philanthropists even after the buildings are complete, says Bruce Benson, LeMay chief operating officer.

“We always hope to break even. You recognize that ongoing philanthropy is always a part of that. Fundraising is always a part of the picture,” Benson says. “Gate receipts will rarely cover the costs.”

The extended business plan looks to traditional funding sources – gate receipts, food service, retail gift shop revenue, building and show-field rental for events – and Benson says, “If we can pay our own way, that’s what we’d hope to do.”

The big deal

Madeira isn’t alone in believing the project will be worthwhile and a boon for Tacoma and Pierce County – as well as providing benefit to automobile hobbyists:

•  Candida Romanelli is vice president of the Greater New York Auto Dealers Association and director of the New York International Auto Show. She’s also a member of the LeMay steering committee.

Last weekend, the LeMay Museum represented itself with a display at the annual show.

“I hope that in some way, the show helps them achieve their goal,” she says. “It gives them an opportunity to get out in front of a tremendous amount of press, and it opens a number of other doors for the project.”

When she first met Madeira and spoke with Nancy LeMay, Romanelli says she was impressed that “there was clearly an incredible amount of passion and excitement for what the LeMay stands for.”

Beyond that, “it is really a breathtaking building. Couple that with the collection itself, and the way it will be shown, it will catapult the LeMay Museum to a household name. I see it as a gift.”

•  Bruce Kendall, president and CEO of the Economic Development Board for Tacoma-Pierce County, says he sees the project in two ways – first for the tourists it will attract, and then as a benefit to employers recruiting employees to a vibrant, creative city.

“People come in from other places, spend their money and leave. That’s about as clean as it gets,” he says. “Then, for downtown in particular, having museums like the LeMay helps build a work-force attraction.”

•  Tacoma Mayor Bill Baarsma says he hopes the museum will come to pass. He notes that the City Council did hear objections to the city’s involvement in at least one previous museum project, but said he’s heard from “nary a naysayer about this project. Not one.”

•  Mike Combs, director of public assembly facilities for the city, says he’s looking forward to the impact of a completed LeMay on Tacoma’s Dome District. Museum representatives are working with the city to compose a master development plan for the area, which Combs says might one day include retail stores, restaurants and urban housing from the Thea Foss Waterway, past the museum and beyond Interstate 5.

•  “It’s an area that has enormous attractabliity,” says Ryan Petty, director of the city’s Community and Economic Development office. “The neat thing is, we have the catalyst of the LeMay Museum kicking things off.” The area, he says, “can have the potential for a hotel, for some offices, for condominiums, work-force housing, retail of a regional draw. I think it has a wonderful blank slate for us to fill in.”

Ahead to the past

And back to the cars.

Steve Root, 58, of Orting, says he’s been a “car nut most of my life.” He’s a member of the Galloping Gertie Model A Car Club and has been a volunteer at the Spanaway museum for perhaps 10 months.

He helps clean cars, dust them, move them for parades and displays.

“I love cars, and it’s a good group,” he says. “We have fun. We just have a good time.”

He believes the proposed museum to be “the most fantastic thing I’ve ever seen. I’m just excited about it.”

The club, he says, has donated $5,000 to the museum yearly for the past four years.

“I’ve been to a lot of museums in the States, and in Europe,” he says. “This will have twice the amount of cars as any museum I’ve seen in the world. We believe in the museum.”

Nancy LeMay says she has so far given the museum title to some 400 cars.

“The full donation will be about 900 cars they really want, and then there will probably be more,” she says. “The city wants 600, but there will probably be more like 900 or a thousand. There are some cars they don’t have on the list that I think are significant, historically important.”

Or they’re important for other reasons. Take the four-door 1954 Chevy that Harold LeMay bought from a state patrolman. It had belonged to the man’s mother, and she had driven it only to church and the local grocery store.

“I drove it as a family car until it had 19,000 miles, and we just parked it,” Nancy says. “It’s a cool little car, blue and white. It’s not a spectacular car, but somebody remembers somebody who drove it to church. It’s just that cars bring back memories.”

She isn’t sad about giving all those cars to all the visitors at the museum yet to be built.

“They’re just cars,” she says. “They’re not people. They’re memories. You always have your memories. That doesn’t go away.”

Were he alive, Nancy says, Harold “would be in awe, particularly of the board. To think that these people would recognize anything he put together. He would have loved them – they’re car people. He would have loved that.”