The Parks and Recreation Committee met 07/25/2022. One of the items they took up was a request to hold discussions with the Trout Museum on the possibility of the Trout Muse relocating to a building built at the Ellen Kort Peace Park.
The committee ended up voting unanimously allow the discussion to happen. This does not mean that the Trout Museum will definitively be able to build a new museum facility at Ellen Kort Park. At this point, if the Common Council approves this recommendation at the 08/03/2022 Council meeting, all it means is that the city and Trout Museum will be allowed to hold discussions about the feasibility and logistics of this idea.
Director of Parks, Recreation, and Facilities Dean Gazza provided an overview of the request. The Trout Museum had been looking for a new facility for their museum, and had recently contacted the city about whether it would be possible to relocate to Ellen Kort Peace Park.
No plans currently existed, and no negotiations had taken place. The Trout Museum representatives had some ideas they wanted to share, but city staff thought it was important to get authorization from the Common Council before they started working with the Trout Museum’s team.
There were several Trout Museum representatives and members of the public in attendance.
Curtis, a former Community and Economic Development Director for the city spoke. He had been working with the Trout team seeking approval for this project. The museum determined that the cost to maintain their current building was prohibitive and building a new facility made more sense. They wanted to stay in the downtown area of Appleton and had looked at more than a dozen different potential sites. They desired a museum that was properly located in a place that residents and visitors wanted to go, was adequately sized, and had the ability to be designed and programed so that it served the community’s best interests.
The Ellen Kort Peace Park really stood out as the most obvious choice. The benefits to the city were numerous. He pointed to the extensive surveys and focus groups conducted by Imagine Fox Cities which demonstrated a desire to gathering spaces fir people, showcase the beauty of park land and natural areas, and promote arts and culture. He noted that he was involved with the planning and funding of the proposed footbridge that was intended to start in Ellen Kort Park. The museum hoped to build their building by that bridge. He envisioned it becoming one of the most exciting and sought-after places for people to gather, spend time together and enjoy the visual arts.
He thought this could be the next significant opportunity to capitalize on the city’s desire to bring the downtown and residence to the river and build connections between downtown and the riverfront.
Christina Turner was the Executive Director of the Trout. She came on in 2018 and made it her mission to build the visual arts in the Fox Cities in a way that included both local artists but also those farther afield. The Trout had grown dramatically in the last few years, going from an annual revenue of around $450,000 to $1.2 million. They were outgrowing their current location. She dreamed of a future where people were coming from all over the state and the Fox Cities to visit the Trout and enjoy the riverfront, increasing tourism.
She saw the see the riverfront as an expansion of downtown and thought it was an incredible and interesting opportunity. The Trout was very excited and hopeful to have further discussions about it.
Jennifer Stephany, the Executive Director of Appleton Downtown Incorporated, said her organization was a strong proponent of increasing the visual arts and culture within the downtown district. They had often talked about increasing the connectivity between downtown and the riverfront and were excited about the opportunity being presented. They were supportive of approving further discussion on the matter.
Christine Williams, a former Appleton alderperson, was a cosponsor of the resolution that had named the park after Ellen Kort, and she was also a member of the Trout Museum, although she was not speaking for them. She was vehemently opposed to building the museum within the park. She did not think parks should be for sale.
Years ago, a group of individuals fought to have this area turned into a park at a time when consideration was being given to building condos there. She had only heard about the plan to build the museum there half an hour before and she rushed immediately over to the meeting to give public comment.
John Brogan was a member of the Trout Museum’s Board of Directors. He said there was a lot of due diligence done in the process of looking for a new site. He understood it was a park, but “the notion that a park must be fixed simply to, you know, green grass is silly.” [Frankly, I thought that came off as rudely dismissive toward the opinion expressed by someone who was so concerned about this project that she ran downtown to attend the committee meeting after extremely short notice. Yes, he may not agree with her perspective, but calling it “silly” sounded condescending and rude.]
He said a lot of parks across the country incorporated art museums, including Forest Park in St. Louis.
The effort by the city to promote artistic opportunities and culture would bring businesses and people to Appleton who needed this kind of cultural support. He thought this was very important, and although he understood this was somewhat different than what they had originally planned for the park, but that didn’t mean it was a bad idea.
With public comment completed, the committee began discussing the item.
Alderperson Sheri Hartzheim (District 13) said she was pleased to see all the bullet points in the memo Director Gazza has submitted to the committee. That leader her to believe staff was looking out for the best interests of the taxpayers as well as for the potential fir the art community to grow in the city.
Her concern was how taxpayers would be affected if this plan developed. What costs would taxpayers see? Who would retain ownership of the building? Etc… She understood those questions couldn’t be answered at this time, but she would like is to approach this very slowly and deliberately as it moved through the committee and Council process.
Alderperson Alex Schultz (District 9) noted he had authored the resolution that named the park after Ellen Kort, and he knew Ellen well.
The property had issues limiting what could be built on it which was one of the reasons why it was designated as a park.
Although development was challenging, it was not impossible, but he thought they would need to discuss what was and was not possible on that site.
He went on to say that across the country, successful downtown and riverfront districts have modern art museums. He pointed to Racine and Milwaukee. He thought locating those in areas with lots of green spaces was beneficial
He was pleased that there was momentum, funding, and some support for this project, but there were conversations that would have to be had about the site. They had already gone through a couple years long design process with a lot of community discussion. The final design became a nationally recognized landscape design, and they really needed to be conscious of that design to make it work.
Although it was not a huge space, he thought the park could accommodate a potential museum building.
Ultimately, the question was whether Ellen Kort herself would be opposed to or in favor of this. He said “we” spoke to Ellen’s daughters. [I’m not sure who exactly “we” referred to.] He appreciated that the Trout leadership reached out to the two Kort daughters and got their opinions on the matter. They both believed their mother would love this idea and they were generally supportive with reservations regarding having gotten a park design after several years of work.
The park had taken several years to get off the ground, so there was the question of how this partnership would impact the process of moving forward with the park project. There were, however, a lot of positive things to be said about a new contemporary art museum being potentially being placed within this award-winning park. He was also cognizant of the fact that for the community members who opposed this plan, there was reason to be opposed.
Alderperson Nate Wolff (District 12) said he had thought about this a lot and believed it was an interesting project that could be a win-win for both the Trout Museum and the City of Appleton. He definitely was in favor of starting communication about it.
He agreed that there were a lot of parks that had museums in them and mentioned his favorite was the Met in Manhattan.
He was looking forward to seeing where this led.
Alderperson Schultz said he thought it would be beneficial to the committee as they voted on this item to get an idea of what the discussions had been regarding funding and the share of the cost between the city and the Trout Museum might look like. He understood it was early and the situation was fluid, but he thought there was some apprehension that the city was going to be on the hook financially for this. He was hoping they could get a little sense of where this might go.
Director Gazza said it was too early. The discussion needed to happen before they could answer those questions.
He did note that the city’s development team had put together some bullet points one of which was that the city would not sell the land but would I stead lease the land. They needed to determine what the value of a lease might be and what the agreement would look like. They needed to figure out the value of Trout of being down there in a way that was fair to taxpayers and that alderpersons could explain to their constituents in a way they understood.
They also needed to determine the number of years the lease would be. He said 99-year leases were common.
There were a lot of factors involved. Once they were able to start having discussions, they could see what it turned into.
There were no further comments or questions, and the committee voted unanimously to allow discussion between the city and the Trout Museum of Art to begin.
[I don’t particularly care one way or the other how this goes, as long as it doesn’t cost taxpayers anything, but I think it should be acknowledged that this would result in a huge vibe shift for the park. It would move from being a park intended to promote quiet contemplation and meditation to being a tourist hub.
The first thing I wondered when I saw this item was how it would impact the sexual assault survivors monument. The proponents of that monument specifically sought to place it in Ellen Kort Peace Park because the park was “built for reflection, healing, and hope.” If I were a sexual assault survivor, I don’t know that I would be comfortable going to a contemplative monument that was right next to a building that was generating a lot of foot traffic.
Obviously, the sexual assault monument is only a small part of the park and was not even an originally planned feature, but, nonetheless, adding an entire modern art museum seems like a huge change in intention and atmosphere.]
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=978110&GUID=051D5959-6C82-41DC-AC1B-694779FA07B0
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