HomeMy WebLinkAboutLetter V.1MIAMI
MUSEUM
SCIENCE
PLANETARIUM
April 13, 2007
Mr. Pedro G. Hernandez
City Manager
City of Miami
3500 Pan American Drive
Miami, FL 33133-5595
Dear Mr. Manager:
Enclosed is an update report on the new Miami Science Museum to be
built in Museum Park, and a further request for funding to supplement
Resolution R-05-0416 dated 7/7/05, which authorized $700,000 of
funding under the City's Homeland Defense/Neighborhood
Improvement Bond Program.
The Museum has completed planning studies for the feasibility of our
capital campaign and the financial business plan of the New Museum,
as well as aquarium and planetarium studies. Our cost consulting is
ongoing, as is our sustainability study for the proposed LEED-certified
green building. We have also embarked on a joint study of parking
with the Miami Art Museum.
The Museum's architectural selection committee has short-listed five
design architects and three executive architects who are to respond to
the Museum's Request for Proposals. The committee will meet on May
1 and 2 to interview and rank the architects. Our New Museum
expenditures will accelerate rapidly as soon as the architects are
named, which we anticipate to be late May 2007.
3280 S. Miami Ave.
Miami, FL 33129
Tel: (305) 646-4200
Fax: (305) 646-4300
www,miamisci.org
In Association with the Smithsonian Institution
In order to keep our project moving at a rapid pace, we are requesting
that the City execute a new grant agreement in the amount of
$2,000,000 to support these first phases of the New Museum, as
specified in the voter -approved Homeland Defense/Neighborhood
Improvement Bond Program. A summary of our project costs is
enclosed, along with an annual summary of costs.
The total project cost is $275 million. Miami -Dade County General
Obligation Bonds will contribute $175 million, the City of Miami's
Homeland Defense/Neighborhood Improvement Bonds will contribute
$2.7 million, and we have already raised $17 million in the silent
phase of our capital campaign. We plan to raise a total of $100 million
from the capital campaign, which will be announced to the public in
the fall of 2007.
The Miami Science Museum is greatly appreciative of the assistance we
have received to -date from you, your staff, and the City's elected
officials. We look forward to a long working relationship with you.
Sincerely,
sAg4-
Gillian M. Thomas
President & CEO