October 14, 2009 · Derek

Lemay Museum Faces Off With City Over Design Changes

We forgot to mention another little tidbit from yesterday’s City Council Study Session …

The TNT today is reporting this morning on a little design issue at the Lemay Museum that puts the whole project in jeopardy. Here’s the issue: The agreement between the City and Lemay officials specifically outlines the development of the Tacoma Dome’s B and C lots into the 9 acre museum complex. The A lot is parking for the Dome and non-negotiable. The agreement also requires a 30 foot wide road on the west side of the lots to be used as a service road. The problem is that the B & C lots only make up 8.7 acres while the designs are for a 9 acre complex. So, the designs have effectively bled into the A lot – which is supposedly non-negotiable.

The solution, according to City Manager Eric Anderson, is to reduce the service road to 20 feet wide. This would leave A intact.

The challenge at this point is one of timing. Agreements need to be redrawn. Designs may or may not need to be changed. AND the Lemay Museum faces looming financing deadlines.

If you may recall, David Boe dedicated an entire Imagine Tacoma to the the Lemay Museum. His words seem even more relevant now.

This may get messy. We’ll see quite soon …

Link to The News Tribune

Filed under: Neighborhoods, Tacoma Landmarks, Museums, Tacoma Dome, LeMay, Dome District, Parking

20 comments

NSHDscott October 14, 2009

Unbelievable that this would come up so late in the process. It really makes you wonder. The City better figure this out quickly as it’s no done deal that the LeMay museum will stay in Tacoma, and failing to land that museum would be another discouraging loss for Tacoma. I don’t even care much for classic cars and I see the value in this!
Nick October 14, 2009

I am also surprised this problem is even possible so late in the game. Someone (or maybe a few someones) must have really screwed up. Hopefully those “someones” didn’t just kill the entire project…
Mofo from the Hood October 14, 2009

What do the guerilla streetcar enthusiasts have to say about this?

Has anyone in the pro-Lemay camp received a notice of accountabilty for this targeted attack?
Erik B. October 14, 2009

The LeMay project has been pending for years. Hard to see how how this conflict in designs occurred.

Please don’t let this be another project in Tacoma that gets screwed up.

Jake Fey put it:

Said Council member Jake Fey, “If I was to parcel out fault, I would put a bit more on the city-side. This should have been caught.”

Marilyn Strickland and Talbert summed up the issue pretty well:

“Even though we may lose some parking spaces, we should look at the big picture,” Councilwoman Marilyn Stickland said.

“It’s not important to me where the blame lies,” Councilman Rick Talbert said. “I just want to see a solution.

The outcome measure for success is whether the project proceeds or not, not whether there is some conflict between of the hundreds of documents on the LeMay project.
Tacoma1 October 14, 2009

I like old cars too. This museum should be a great tourist draw! Hopefully they can figure at a solution quickly. Once it’s up and running all the more reason for street cars and lightrail to keep the tourists of our roads.
Jim C October 14, 2009

Am I the only one who sees the irony in someone having a problem with the loss of a third of an acre of surface parking for the construction of a car museum? Seriously. It’s like our civic planning is being done from the back of a short yellow bus.
RR Anderson October 14, 2009

how about a 250 Meter shoe horn?
Douglas Tooley October 14, 2009

The City is looking at bike path routes for the area in a currently funded study.

Would it be too much to hope that there is a fix in – a combo bike/ped path and service route connecting to the Thea Foss via the Post and Beam habitat corridor?
rich October 15, 2009

REALLY???? No seriously, really? are you kidding me, another lost project by this city…..give me a fricken break…….let me guess, the next project on their list is the ELKS…..let the shoe drop on that one too……what a fricken bunch of loosers in the government of tacoma…..what a joke of a town…so much possiblity but yet it is left in waste……..how frustrating….
frizzlebee October 15, 2009

So let me get this straight… in order for this project to move forward, all that has to be done is change a 30-foot-wide service road to a 20-foot-wide service road? Why is this an issue? Unless there is some sort of legal requirement from the fire department that states service roads around museums must be 30 feet wide, there is no problem.
As an added bonus, the asphalt that would be used on the extra 10 feet could be used to patch some really gnarly pot holes.
RR Anderson October 15, 2009

Loser has only one “O”.
Now who is the Looser?
rich October 15, 2009

actually I left a few out……..looooosers…..is what it should have been…
ChadK Superstar October 16, 2009

For the love of God, Tacoma, don’t screw this up!!
Eric October 16, 2009

As someone who was around this from the beginning…but is no longer anything more than an active observer…

It’s pretty cool over the years watching the museum try to stand up on its own two feet, live or die. That was HE’s goal from the beginning. Families don’t make museums. If they did, the process of making the sausage would just gross everyone out.

Make it be organic and figure out what the market can bare. The city is part of that market, you guys are part of that market, donors are part of that market…but if the bunny runs out of batteries after 13 years over this, it wasn’t meant to be anyway. No matter how much we all liked the idea. The idea needs money and I doubt the museum is in much of a negotiating position with banks over deadlines.

But I wouldn’t be too quick to say that this is anything other than a minor snafu from the city, AT THIS POINT. It will be huge for the museum if there is anyone determined to make the “snafu” more than a bump in a decade+ road to get it sited there.
David Boe October 16, 2009

Another issue where the City of Tacoma is working without a plan. Yes we have planning but not an actual Master Plan for the Dome District so that when a developer wants to build a project – be it LeMay or Sound Transit – there is a development map to look at to see how it will fit or not (not just checking the warm fuzzy language of the Comprehensive Plan policy statements). UWT has a Master Plan – but the City always wants to work without a similar net. It seems obvious to me that the parking, road access, and event access would have all been figured out BEFORE you even get a deal going on the property – I think that is called due dilligence. I have been in some of the meetings – and it sure appears to me that everyone is hesitant to rolling-up their sleeves and figuring this all out – and my opinion if someone did make a serious effort at working out all the tangibles they would find many more reasons to NOT locate the LeMay Museum here (can you imagine some poor schmuck having flown accross the country to go the LeMay Museum the same weekend the Dome is packed with high school sports so ends up parking up on McKinley Hill and walking down in the rain – somehow I don’t think that is going to work). Why the City Manager just doesn’t lease the Convention Center to LeMay is beyond me – it would solve many more problems then locating the LeMay in the T-Dome Parking lots is going to create.
Squid October 16, 2009

Boe@16: having that puppy closer to the downtown core and walking distance to three other museums would have multiple benefits.
jamie from thriceallamerican October 16, 2009

@16 & @17:

AND we could include a provision allowing the museum to use Tollefson Plaza for rotating outdoor exhibits.
crenshaw sepulveda October 16, 2009

All you people worried about this LeMay museum when Daniel Blue may be leaving Tacoma. People, where are your priorities? Blue has done more for Tacoma than any old museum of cars will do. Maybe we get a car museum, maybe we don’t. But don’t let Daniel Blue slip though our fingers. Everyone has to show up for his show on th 17th at Bob’s Java Jive. Show Daniel Blue that great 253 spirit and support. We can survive the loss of Russell, we can survive the loss of the Luzon, we will never survive the loss of Daniel Blue.
Nicholas Arndt October 16, 2009

The Convention Center might draw more conventions as a Car Museum than a Convention Center. Wrap your brain around that one!
Squid October 17, 2009

C-Sep: Point Taken.