Posted on Mon, May. 23, 2005
Weapons museum hurt by debt
LOUISVILLE SITE FALLS SHORT OF ITS ATTENDANCE GOALS
ASSOCIATED PRESS
LOUISVILLE - A newly opened $32 million downtown museum that showcases the history of weaponry is poorly attended and is suffering from high debt.
The Frazier Historical Arms Museum opened a year ago but has had just 93,000 visitors, about 40 percent below projected attendance.
The museum's nationally recognized weapons collection boasts Teddy Roosevelt's "Big Stick," George Washington's rifle and Gen. George Armstrong Custer's Colt Navy revolvers.
The museum's founder, philanthropist Owsley Brown Frazier, has paid out more than $3 million from his own pocket to cover the museum's debt and interest on $21 million in outstanding loans.
Frazier said he wants to keep the museum open, adding that attendance should increase as changes are made and the museum becomes better-known.
"People still don't understand that this a museum more of history than anything else," Frazier said. "People come in all the time and say, 'Oh, my gosh. This is not at all what I expected. It's beautiful.'"
Frazier, 70, a retired Brown-Forman Corp. executive, intended the museum in part to publicly showcase his own extensive and rare weapons collection.
The museum's exhibits are supplemented with rare weaponry, much of it medieval, from England's Royal Armouries, as part of a deal to create the first permanent showing of the British collection in America.
A consultant had estimated first-year attendance would be 80,000 to 150,000, but Frazier's marketing staff forecast a much higher figure after the Royal Armouries deal was signed. They projected the unique offerings would attract as many as 250,000 in the first year.
Walter Karcheski, the museum's chief curator, says the staff's attendance projection "was overly optimistic," adding that drawing so many visitors "is a building process."
Museum executive director Ed Webb said it's not impossible to reach the predicted 250,000 attendance, but it might take five years -- "we have not yet built a base of school and tourism groups."
Frazier is planning to expand the collection. A New Jersey woman wants to donate a collection of 50 Colt revolvers. Frazier said the museum also wants to add an exhibit of Kentucky long rifles.
Frazier acknowledged that his decision to open the museum before fund-raising was in place put a burden on him to cover all the debt.
"Maybe it would have been better not to move quite as swiftly," he said. "I wasn't moving at museum speed. I was moving at corporate speed."
Weapons museum hurt by debt
LOUISVILLE SITE FALLS SHORT OF ITS ATTENDANCE GOALS
ASSOCIATED PRESS
LOUISVILLE - A newly opened $32 million downtown museum that showcases the history of weaponry is poorly attended and is suffering from high debt.
The Frazier Historical Arms Museum opened a year ago but has had just 93,000 visitors, about 40 percent below projected attendance.
The museum's nationally recognized weapons collection boasts Teddy Roosevelt's "Big Stick," George Washington's rifle and Gen. George Armstrong Custer's Colt Navy revolvers.
The museum's founder, philanthropist Owsley Brown Frazier, has paid out more than $3 million from his own pocket to cover the museum's debt and interest on $21 million in outstanding loans.
Frazier said he wants to keep the museum open, adding that attendance should increase as changes are made and the museum becomes better-known.
"People still don't understand that this a museum more of history than anything else," Frazier said. "People come in all the time and say, 'Oh, my gosh. This is not at all what I expected. It's beautiful.'"
Frazier, 70, a retired Brown-Forman Corp. executive, intended the museum in part to publicly showcase his own extensive and rare weapons collection.
The museum's exhibits are supplemented with rare weaponry, much of it medieval, from England's Royal Armouries, as part of a deal to create the first permanent showing of the British collection in America.
A consultant had estimated first-year attendance would be 80,000 to 150,000, but Frazier's marketing staff forecast a much higher figure after the Royal Armouries deal was signed. They projected the unique offerings would attract as many as 250,000 in the first year.
Walter Karcheski, the museum's chief curator, says the staff's attendance projection "was overly optimistic," adding that drawing so many visitors "is a building process."
Museum executive director Ed Webb said it's not impossible to reach the predicted 250,000 attendance, but it might take five years -- "we have not yet built a base of school and tourism groups."
Frazier is planning to expand the collection. A New Jersey woman wants to donate a collection of 50 Colt revolvers. Frazier said the museum also wants to add an exhibit of Kentucky long rifles.
Frazier acknowledged that his decision to open the museum before fund-raising was in place put a burden on him to cover all the debt.
"Maybe it would have been better not to move quite as swiftly," he said. "I wasn't moving at museum speed. I was moving at corporate speed."
