Oak Lawn still struggling to finish museum

The future site of the Children's Museum of Oak Lawn remains under construction. (Art Vassy/SouthtownStar)

One by one, a motorized pulley system lifts colorful kites to the ceiling of the Children’s Museum of Oak Lawn and releases them onto a track, sending the diamond-shaped objects around the room’s perimeter.

Hiccuping along at a slow clip, the kite makes its lap then comes to a stop. The whole process takes about 10 seconds.

“That’s kind of the big thing,” museum director Adam Woodworth said.

Elsewhere inside the cramped museum, you’ll find a few small exhibits and what legally passes for educational toys: dinosaurs, a puppet theater, Mr. Potato Head and make-believe cash registers.

Portions of some exhibits, such as a little kids market, won’t fit in the museum, so they’re left out altogether.

For the past six years, Oak Lawn officials, corporate donors, private benefactors and museum personnel have tried to move the museum from the boxy, 900-square-foot structure into a massive two-story structure along 95th Street.

And as the museum has struggled to raise enough money to supply the new building with exhibits, its debut has been pushed back again and again.

Redevelopment rules

Plans for the museum became a political football in the lead-up to the 2005 municipal election.

The village had been considering a massive redevelopment of a stretch of 95th Street in an effort to create a new downtown area bustling with retail stores and condominiums near a new parking deck and a spruced-up Metra train stop.

The price tag? About $100 million.

To fund the project, officials approved the creation of a special taxing district, which drew the ire of some residents and officials who believed the administration had rammed the plans into action.

The children’s museum “was supposed to be the panacea to soak us into the notion this was going to be wonderful development,” said Myrna Jurcev, a resident who unsuccessfully sued the village on the grounds that it was unfair for officials to cite blight on 95th Street as a justification to green-light the special taxing district. “I still have not come to terms with the fact the children’s museum borders a highway and railroad tracks.”

In 2004, just days after the controversial downtown development plan was approved by the village board, a new plan surfaced between private developers and the village that called for the new museum to be the central focus of the redevelopment.

Some insiders saw the inclusion of the kids museum as a way to gain support for the controversial redevelopment.

The deal allowed the village to take control of a building and lease it to the museum for $1 per month for the next 40 years.

At the time, Dave Heilmann, then a park district commissioner running for mayor, campaigned for an expanded museum but was against creating the downtown tax district. Heilmann, elected mayor in 2005, did not return multiple e-mails and phone calls seeking for comment for this story.

Since then, two condo buildings have sprouted, a strip mall’s been built and populated with chain retailers (with noticeable vacancies) and Metra trains are whisking residents to and from the village – even on weekends, just since earlier this year.

Trustee Bob Streit (3rd) long has been a vocal opponent of the redevelopment plan for the village’s downtown.

“I was happy with what we had: mom-and-pop stores, a lot of locally-owned stores. That’s kind of neat. It’s really what makes a community special. That plan transformed that,” he said. “A lot of things have gone wrong, but we have to make the best of what we have in front of us. I think we’re trying.”

Meanwhile, paying guests settle for the existing museum, 9600 East Shore Drive, among the smallest in the country.

The size prevents Woodworth from booking field trips there.

He also turns down requests for group outings to the bigger, empty facility.

Closing cash hard to find

An auditor’s balance sheet shows the museum has about $645,000 in its coffers.

Woodworth, the museum’s executive director since 2006, said the nonprofit agency has spent about $800,000 on interior improvements to the two-story, 12,000 square foot facility at 95th Street and 51st Avenue.

“We inherited a structure,” he said. “We didn’t inherit a building.”

As contractors have worked to transform that structure, Woodworth, who has background in corporate fundraising, has been at the helm of campaigns to raise the $2 million he said is needed to complete the facility.

Since 2001, the museum has received nearly $1.7 million in grants, membership dues, admissions and contributions, records show.

They’ve also spent more than $1 million on, among other things, exhibit supplies, maintenance fees and payroll costs for Woodworth, three full-time and two part-time staffers.

Now Woodworth is asking the village board to back a $1.45 million loan museum officials say is needed to buy and install exhibits, including a tree house, “builder’s workshop,” health care station and police and fire stations.

So far, the new museum contains just a smattering of exhibits bought for a discount from a failed kids’ museum in Knoxville, Tenn.

Trustee Tom Phelan (6th) who heads the village board’s finance committee, chided Woodworth and other museum officials for “omissions and errors” in their financial presentation to the committee during a 4 1 / 2 hour meeting last week and asked them for a reworked analysis before the village would consider backing the loan.

That report is forthcoming, and trustees are expected to vote on the issue soon.

What’s next

While the village considers whether to back the loan, museum officials are waiting for reimbursements from a $250,000 state grant and are expecting another $190,000 secured by U.S. Rep. Dan Lipinski (D-3rd), of Western Springs.

Getting that cash would allow the museum to make payments on the loan, Woodworth said, should the village decide to be the guarantor.

But for now the only thing that’s guaranteed are more delays.

Originally, officials wanted to have the museum opened by June 2006, and grand openings have been pushed back ever since.

Now Woodworth is considering a partial opening, one where the exhibits would be cleverly positioned throughout the building to leave the cavernous space feeling full.

“It’s how you space things out,” he said. “But you want to open with that ‘wow’ factor.”