THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, April 12, 1995 TAG: 9504110142
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY BILL REED, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 141 lines
DAY IN AND DAY OUT the din of construction fills the air along Owl Creek, but traffic at the main entrance and in the parking lot of the Virginia Marine Science Museum remains constant.
School buses from as far as Newport News unload hordes of chattering students on the macadam. Vans and roomy sedans disgorge a steady stream of families and elderly visitors on the work-cluttered grounds.
Neither the clanking of giant cranes, the chatter of air hammers nor yells of workmen swarming nearby, have deterred the people flowing in and out of the property, which lies one mile south of the resort strip.
And that's the way museum director C. Mac Rawls likes it.
What he sees is an already successful regional attraction undergoing a rapid transformation into a major state tourist draw with the potential to rival Busch Gardens, Colonial Williamsburg or Monticello.
The words ``major attraction'' have a special meaning to James B. Ricketts, director of the Convention and Visitors Development Bureau, who oversees the city's efforts to attract tourists.
The enlarged museum and a new $15 million Virginia Beach amphitheater - which should get under way soon across town - would play a large role in increasing resort business, especially through bus tours to the city in off-season months, he said.
Group tour operators throughout the country rank live entertainment as the primary draw for potential customers, he insists, and the marine science museum fits that bill here in Virginia Beach.
``We're looking for it to be a prime benefit for the group tour market,'' said Ricketts, ``and it will be the focal point of our advertisement.''
Bus tour traffic to Virginia Beach has fallen off by about 8 percent a year for the past two or three years, he said. This is mainly because the city doesn't have major attractions to entertain visitors, Ricketts explained.
``I think with the marine science museum and the amphitheater both coming to completion about the same time next year there are two major attractions that (tour) operators are excited about.''
The museum project and the amphitheater are the centerpieces of the city's 4-year-old Tourism Growth Investment Fund initiative, a tourist-related building program financed by special resort business taxes over a 10-year period.
Construction of the $35 million marine science museum addition is moving ahead briskly and on schedule at two separate sites, one-half mile apart on the 45-acre creekside tract. When completed, workers will have added 80,000 feet of floor space and 400,000 gallons of aquarium space to the museum.
The project should be finished in stages during the remainder of 1995 and into the fall of 1996.
When all of its doors swing open, the museum, which now draws 335,000 ticket-buying customers a year, is expected to draw upwards of 700,000.
The first segment to open will be the 20,000-square-foot ``south building,'' which stands near the entrance to Ocean Breeze amusement park on General Booth Boulevard. The structure will house an otter pool, an aviary for birds native to Southeastern Virginia and two marsh life exhibits.
``It's 65 percent complete,'' said Bud Mitchell, superintendent for this segment of construction for general contractor W.M. Jordan of Newport News. ``We're starting on the roof now and should be finished in about seven months.''
One-half mile to the north, past a one-half-mile-long ``nature'' trail now in the making, is the existing museum building and two rising additions. One is a six-story IMAX theater; the other is a waterfront extension of the existing museum building.
This will house a 300,000-gallon tank that replicates marine and plant life in the Norfolk Canyon, a deep-sea depression 60 miles off the Virginia coast. Included will be a turtle tank and a seal tank.
The last items on the construction list are now 50 percent complete, says Howard Joyner, superintendent for the northern portion of the project.
``We had to stagger the start because we had to build the trail bridges first and set the piles for the north building, which is out over the water,'' Joyner said.
Joyner and Mitchell oversee 120 workers at the two construction sites each day as they weld steel, pour concrete, set piles and grade the landscape.
They've worked together before - on the Nauticus project in Norfolk, the Aerospace Museum on the Peninsula and the addition to the Children's Hospital of The King's Daughters in Norfolk.
The original marine science museum building, which has remained open to visitors as construction progresses, will be closed for six months for a facelift of its own, once the additions are completed, said Rawls.
The old building and the additions were designed by E. Verner Johnson, a Boston architect who also drafted plans for the Virginia Beach Center for the Arts and has overseen renovation work on the Louvre, the historic art museum in Paris.
The present construction is moving ahead at a clip far surpassing the efforts on the original structure, which opened June 14, 1986, at a cost of $8.2 million.
The building structure was completed at $490,000 over budget and a year past schedule.
Foul weather, subpar work and a succession of change orders contributed to the increase in cost and time. The general contractor on the job at the time was SR International, a construction company based in Virginia Beach.
The original museum building contains 40,000 square feet of exhibit, classroom and office space and a 50,000-gallon tank featuring marine and plant life near the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay.
A $5 million capital fund drive for the marine science museum has reached the 60 percent mark.
While the TGIF revenue and state allocations will cover the construction costs, the capital fund drive will underwrite the cost of the exhibits that go in the museum.
A major contributor to the fund so far has been the Virginia Beach Hotel and Motel Association, which has pledged $250,000. ILLUSTRATION: [Cover]
THE MARINE CORPS
[Color Photo]
Mac Rawls
Staff photos by MORT FRYMAN
A six-story IMAX theater is under construction, still about 25-feet
short of its completion height. ON THE COVER: Mac Rawls, director of
the museum.
A meandering half-mile-long ``nature'' trail will link the expanded
existing museum building, including a new aquarium, with the new
IMAX theater.
LEFT: The Owl Creek Salt Marsh Building, attached to the existing
museum, will have a river otter viewing area and an aviary in back.
RIGHT: Robert Hardy, a concrete finisher, works on what will be the
sea otter tank.
MUSEUM DATA
Attractions to be added: a 300,000-gallon tank featuring sharks
and other marine life off the Virginia coast, a sea turtle tank, a
live seal tank, an aviary featuring birds native to southeastern
Virginia, a new marsh life trail and exhibits, and an IMAX theater.
Hours: Open seven days a week (except Thanksgiving and Christmas
Day) from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Summer hours are 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.
weekdays and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sundays.
Admission: currently $4.95 for adults, $4.25 for children age 12
and younger. After expansion is completed, it will increase to8 to
$10.
Location: 717 General Booth Blvd., one mile south of the resort
strip.
by CNB