Expanded Museum Facility Will Be Northwest Showcase

Unpublished correction: In the published text, the column name was incorrectly identified as “Your turn.”

Anyone driving along Riverside Avenue in west Spokane can’t help but notice the level of activity at the site of the Eastern Washington State Historical Society/Cheney Cowles Museum.

Rising out of the ground is the new museum and completely renovated Cheney Cowles Building. We have now selected a new name for the eight-acre campus - Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture.

The naming of the new multi-facility campus is the first step as we prepare to open this $28 million arts and cultural center which will benefit not only the residents of the three-state region, but the entire Northwest. When it opens in the late fall of 2001, the campus will feature the existing historic 1898 Campbell House, and Cheney Cowles Museum which will house administrative offices, collections, library and archives, and the auditorium. In addition, the expanded campus features a new facility housing five galleries, a community room, Museum Store, cafe, education facility, the center for Plateau Cultural Studies, a 300-seat outdoor amphitheater, a free (tri-level) parking garage, and innovative landscaping.

The grand opening exhibits will be extraordinary, allowing audience participation with interactive high-tech effects challenging all of your senses, rekindling childhood memories, reconfirming the region’s history, spotlighting our Northern Plateau tribes and showcasing the best of the visual arts.

The Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture will provide a cultural bridge linking the entire Northwest in a celebration that is highly visual, creative and inclusive. The three major museum disciplines - visual art, regional history and American Indian and other cultures, as well as the vast collections - were seriously considered as criteria throughout the naming process.

In addition to our new name and the capital project, we also have another reason to celebrate. The Cheney Cowles Museum and the historic Campbell House have again been awarded the highest honor a museum can receive: accreditation by the American Association of Museums. Of the 8,000 museums nationwide, only 750 received accreditation.

The professional AAM accreditation is also in recognition of the credibility and diversity of the museum’s extensive collections, valued at well over $21 million. The accreditation team felt the museum was a strong institution with an excellent collection, a stunning Campbell House and aggressive plans for the new facility. The museum’s Northern Plateau American Indian collection is recognized as one of the most outstanding in the world.

The new museum will have a major economic impact on the region. According to a survey by the Spokane Area Chamber of Commerce and Spokane Arts Commission, the direct impact of the arts in the Spokane area is an impressive $23 million annually and the indirect economic impact reported is more than $61 million. The new museum is expected to attract 150,000 visitors annually, which should generate about $8 million annually into the Spokane economy. A growing number of visitors are special interest travelers who rank the arts, heritage and cultural activities among their top five reasons to travel.

The Education Center at the new museum is equally important to our quality of life in our community. It has been documented that the arts have the potential to aid learning in specific areas, such as reading, writing, math and creativity. Studies have proven that students with exposure to the arts continue to outperform their non-arts peers on the Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT).

Local business and community leaders confirm our economic projections. When the expanded museum reopens it will become the region’s number one tourist attraction. Hartly Krueger, recently retired President and General Manager of the Spokane Convention and Visitors Bureau has noted, “Tourism helps contribute $500 million a year to the Spokane economy and the expanded museum campus will ensure the continuing success of this major industry.”

Although the Washington Legislature appropriated nearly $20 million for the project last year, the museum is responsible for raising nearly $8 million from private sources. Due to the generous support of individuals, corporations and foundations, we have achieved two-thirds of our goal. We still have to raise $1.9 million.

Assisting us to raise the final $1.9 million is one of the most impressive groups of individuals ever assembled in the Northwest to head a capital campaign. Leading the way are honorary Inland Northwest co-chairs Harold and Priscilla Gilkey, and Robert and Jean Kendall, and honorary Western Washington chair, Phyllis J. Campbell, President, U.S. Bank, Washington. A campaign team of 18 of the region’s leading business and civic leaders assists them.

In less than a year and a half, we will open the doors of the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture. Working together you can help us fulfill our dream of creating a cultural asset for families and children across the Northwest for this new millennium and beyond.