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Forums > Questions to the City of Springfield > List your questions: we'll get the answers

Subject: Wonders of Wildlife museum

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Allen Dawson
Posts:3

07/09/2008 12:07 PM	Alert
My Question is how much money did the city and the county put into Wonders of Wildlife museum just to have it close down a few years later to be totally remodeled? How mush city or county money is going into remodeling it and after it done is the ownership going to be transferred over to Bass Pro and if so how much did the buy it for.

Mike Durbin
Posts:10

07/10/2008 11:06 PM	Alert
I'm not sure the city put money into the museum. The funding for it came from a special sales tax that businesses within the "museum district" must charge. The district, as I understand it, consists of Bass Pro Shop, Payless Shoes and Choate Auto Electric. These businesses, either currently or while the museum was being built, charge a higher sales tax that goes to the museum (I think they stopped charging the sales tax when the museum opened its doors and started collecting its own revenue but I don't know that for sure). City or county money is not going to the remodeling. That was funded by ticket sales. John Morris seems to be uninterested in buying the museum outright. Every time the museum seems to be in dire straits financially one of his corporations bails it out. Mercury outboards donated a million, Tracker marine donated millions, Big Cedar donated millions, etc. I'm certainly not a supporter of the museum (I did work for them at one point) but I just wanted the facts as I know them to be put out for discussion. I think the problem the museum has is that it's very poorly managed (it can't keep a director for more than two years, the pumps and filters for the fish tanks already have to be replaced while Bass Pros have been running for over 15 years!, they refuse to lower ticket prices despite having successful periods when they lowered the prices for locals but raised them shortly thereafter, etc.), it was built based on the number of visitors Bass Pro had back in 1999 and 2000 but that included locals who, once they went and saw it once, wouldn't go back and pay the $12 a person to see it again and again. Also John Morris began building Bass Pro stores across the nation which hurt not only the museum's attendance but also the Springfield Bass Pro as well. Think about it, if you lived a few states away and he put a store in your town, why travel to Springfield? Also the store in Branson will hurt attendance. If you're a tourist in Branson and you want to go to a Bass Pro, why spend an hour and a half of your vacation day driving to the Springfield store when there's one right there in Branson?

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Forums > Questions to the City of Springfield > List your questions: we'll get the answers > Wonders of Wildlife museum

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