Show of support for AMSE planned for Saturday, Feb. 18

 

A show of support and appreciation for the American Museum of Science and Energy is planned for Saturday, February 18, an organizer said.

“This is a gathering for appreciation and support for the museum and its role as a cornerstone and icon of our community,” organizer David Hackett said in an email. “It is not a political rally or protest as such.”

Hackett said politics and economics have affected the museum. He pointed out that the museum will be smaller after its relocation to the former Sears Roebuck store near JCPenney at the former Oak Ridge Mall, which is now being redeveloped as Main Street Oak Ridge.

“The downsizing comes at a crucial time for the advance of tourism and the creation of the Manhattan Project National Historical Park,” Hackett said. “Just when we should all be pulling together to make the park work, the rug is being pulled from under it.”

He said he thinks it’s a complicated issue fraught with political overtones.

“The museum has been in a downward spiral of neglect for many years,” Hackett said. “It appears that downsizing it will continue the downward spiral. However, that is not what this event should be about.”

Instead, the Saturday show of support should provide a positive display of how important the museum has been and should be to the community, Hackett said.

“It has been an icon and the cornerstone of tourism,” he said. “We need to let the community know, city leadership know, museum staff know, and perhaps it may serve as catharsis for grieving our pending loss. We stand at a crossroads, and we all need to understand where the museum is headed…We need to celebrate AMSE.”

The AMSE Appreciation Day starts at noon Saturday, February 18, at the museum, Hackett said.

“Be there to show your support for this icon of Oak Ridge—and be prepared to pay the admission fee to fully demonstrate that support,” he said.

Under a property transfer agreement signed December 30, new businesses could be built on the 17 acres that now house AMSE, which is on South Tulane Avenue in central Oak Ridge. The museum will be relocated to the former Sears Roebuck, and the AMSE building itself could be demolished.

The changes are allowed under an agreement approved by federal officials, unanimously approved by the Oak Ridge City Council in December, and signed by U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz and Oak Ridge Mayor Warren Gooch in a December 30 ceremony.

The U.S. Department of Energy said the transfer of the museum property, owned by the federal government, will allow the City of Oak Ridge to “explore future innovative development and economic stimulus opportunities.”

When the transfer is completed, DOE public outreach and education missions that are now conducted at AMSE will continue in renovated space in the two-story building that once housed the Sears Roebuck store.

DOE has said the AMSE property transfer will save more than $2 million in deferred maintenance costs at the museum and greatly reduce operating expenses.

A landmark institution, the American Museum of Science and Energy has been considered one of the top tourist attractions in the Knoxville area, and it attracts about 65,000 visitors per year.

But there have been discussions and proposals to help secure the future of AMSE dating back to at least 2000. The museum has been at its current two-story building since 1975.

Under the agreement signed in late December, the 17-acre AMSE site is being transferred from the U.S. Department of Energy to the City of Oak Ridge. The city will then transfer the property in two phases to a company set up by RealtyLink, the developer of Main Street Oak Ridge. That new company, called TN Oak Ridge Illinois LLC, will then be able to use the AMSE site for economic development, although no specific development plans have been announced yet.

Moniz said the AMSE transfer allows the museum, which is managed by Oak Ridge National Laboratory, to move out of a large building that is hard to maintain into a building that is the right size. AMSE currently has about 54,000 square feet of space. The exhibit space occupies about 15,000 square feet of that, not including the museum lobby.

The agreement signed Friday calls for the AMSE missions to be relocated within about one year to 18,000 square feet of space in the former Sears store.

The city will, in turn, sublease that former Sears space to DOE at no charge for 15 years, and it can be used for the federal government’s public outreach and education missions now conducted at AMSE—as well as for a temporary visitor center for the Manhattan Project National Historical Park.

More information will be added as it becomes available.

 

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