Public shaping Chandler Museum plans

Residents want the new $12.5 million Chandler Museum planned for downtown to be the hub of a larger city arts district, according to city officials.

On Thursday Chandler hosted the first of three public meetings on the proposal to replace the existing 7,300-square-foot museum, on a grassy square in the civic center complex southeast of Buffalo Street and Arizona Avenue, with one that is more than three times larger. The new museum will be situated immediately north of the new $76 million City Hall under construction on Chicago Street, west of Arizona Avenue.

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Jody Crago, museum administrator, said the museum fits into the city's overarching downtown redevelopment plans, which call for a pedestrian-oriented center of commerce, entertainment and government with a plethora of arts options.

"What we're hearing from the public affects the programmatic choices," Crago said. "We're literally listening to the public and asking them, 'What kind of museum can we build for you?'"

Other comments the city has gleaned from residents involve having the museum host traveling exhibits, he said. The existing museum is mainly dedicated to Chandler history. Designs for the building are dependent on community input, he said. City staff expects to present the City Council with several design options in January.

"All of this will add to the creation of the designs," Crago said.

City officials previously considered transforming a dilapidated area south of the Crowne Plaza San Marcos Resort, west of Arizona Avenue, into a future entertainment district. The city also is in negotiations to put a major conference center at the resort.

Those additions, along with the new museum and the nearby Chandler Center for the Arts, on the northwest corner of Chandler Boulevard and Arizona Avenue, could comprise the several spokes of the downtown arts district.

"We're sort of talking about how this begins to connect these arts opportunities," Crago said.

The museum is slated to sit on the same site as the new City Hall, and the two structures would be separated by a landscaped plaza, he said.

"They envision that as a place where people can sit out and be active," Crago said.

While the new City Hall is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2010, construction of the new museum likely wouldn't begin until 2012, he said. The site currently is being used by Serrano's restaurant for parking, he said.

Design consulting firm SmithGroup, to which the city is paying $83,000, is hosting the public meetings. The second was slated for Saturday morning, while the third is scheduled for 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Chandler Senior Center, 202 E. Boston St., on the east side of Arizona Avenue.

The Chandler Historical Society founded the original Chandler Museum on six acres of city-owned land on the northwest corner of Arizona Avenue and Chicago Street in 1972. It moved to its current location, a former library, in 1986.

Chandler has held three elections to approve bond issues for the museum. Voters defeated the first in 2000. The second two bond elections, however, were successful. Voters authorized $8.5 million for the museum in 2007 and an additional $4 million.

Previous plans called for putting the new museum on the site of the original one, on the west side of Arizona Avenue. At one point, the city awarded a development contract to the Desert Viking firm to build the museum there in conjunction with retail and office space.

But the city's Museum Advisory Board in 2007 recommended moving the museum to the new City Hall site after Desert Viking indicated the museum might be too massive for the original site, and the museum's special construction requirements might make the project too costly there.

The city took over museum operations from the historical society last August in anticipation of the new, publicly funded facility.