Township looks at plans for $40 million museum

Officials in The Woodlands are working with representatives from the Houston Museum of Natural Science in an effort to bring a $40 million, 200,000-square-foot museum to Town Center. The idea took shape after a market feasibility study was conducted in line with The Woodlands Township's "visioning" document.

That forward-looking document calls for adding new places to the community to benefit both residents and visitors, said TWT Vice President of Marketing and Public Affairs Nick Wolda. "We have been in a process the last year and a half looking at what are the next options for 'people' places in the town center area," Wolda said. "We did a study that narrowed it down to eight options - arts, culture, history - we looked at all different types of things."

PFK Consulting, a San Francisco firm with a Houston office, estimates the economic impact of the facility, in terms of sales tax and other revenues, would be about $353 million over the next 20 years. "A partnership with Houston in building a museum here...would attract several hundred thousand people a year and be beneficial for the residents of The Woodlands, as well as the visitors, the schools here and many others," Wolda said.

Included as part of the proposed museum would be classrooms, exhibition space and an observation tower providing an aerial view of The Woodlands, said Joel Bartsch, president of HMNS. There has been discussion about locating an IMAX theater in the building, but Bartsch said he wasn't sure if that would happen. The Woodlands Mall currently houses two museums, The Woodlands Children's Museum and the XPloration Station, an HMNS satellite location.

Bartsch said the Houston Museum of Natural Science's first presence in The Woodlands was with its summer camp offerings. Because of their popularity, the XPloration Station was opened in the mall. About 1,500 memberships to the Houston Museum of Natural Science have been purchased by visitors to the XPloration Station, and The Woodlands now has one of the highest concentrations of museum memberships in the Houston area, Bartsch said. "That convinced us this is probably the time to do something a little more permanent (in The Woodlands)," he said.

No date has been set for the design or construction of the museum, and the project could still be several years away. "If this was a 12-step program we'd probably not even be to step one yet. We have a lot more to do and a lot further to go down the road," Bartsch said. Among the issues that need to be worked out are ways for TWT and the museum to finance the building and land acquisition options. The primary site being considered for the museum is at the southwest corner of Six Pines Drive and The Woodlands Waterway, south of the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion parking garage.

That two-acre property is owned by The Woodlands Development Company. "We still have a long way to go before we can say a museum is coming, but we're excited to be at this point," said TWT Director Vicki Richmond. "(There would be) a community sense of pride in having a facility of this magnitude in The Woodlands. Cultural arts are really part of the fabric of a great community."

Source: The Villager by Jake Muonio