Children's Museum leaders support Naperville plan

Naperville's proposed purchase of the DuPage Children's Museum site is a best-case scenario for both the city and the facility, museum Executive Director Susan Broad said Friday.

It was the first public comment from museum officials since the proposed acquisition was announced Wednesday.

Under the proposal, the financially troubled museum will be freed from its existing $9.4 million debt but will have to operate without the city's Special Events & Cultural Amenities funding support, which accounted for about 7 percent of the museum's annual budget.

Most importantly, Broad said, the deal would put the museum on public land, automatically qualifying it for state and federal dollars not currently available to the museum because it sits on a private parcel at 301 N. Washington St. at the gateway to the city's downtown.

The current economy makes the availability of such funds questionable, Broad said, but it's better to qualify for them than not.

"The benefits from both the federal and state levels specifically aligned for improvement in education will be available to us now and we will pursue them," Broad said. "For that and several other reasons, we are encouraging our city council members to vote positively on this and for those citizens who want the museum to stay in Naperville to support that decision."

The city council is scheduled to discuss the proposal Tuesday evening and then vote on it at the same meeting.

The proposal includes at least five layers of funding. The city will put in $3 million. The state will put in $1.94 million, consisting partially of funds pooled from Reps. Darlene Senger, Michael Connelly and Patti Bellock's member initiatives. DuPage County has promised $250,000 and private donors have pledged between $750,000 and $1 million.

The remainder is expected to come from a $3.21 million write down by Chase Bank, which holds the museum's $9.4 million note.

Broad said she is very proud of the museum's ability to pay that note down from more than $13.3 million.

"I realize that may not sound all that great to anyone but me, but that was a challenge and we did it using all our funding," she said. "People say we're financially troubled but I'm very proud of the progress we've made."

Supporters of the plan on the city council say it's a way to save a valuable cultural amenity in the city. And if the museum can't succeed under the new arrangement, they say the city will have acquired a valuable piece of property for just a fraction of its value that possibly could be converted into a parking deck.

Opponents, however, have questioned the short time frame the city is pursuing to close the deal to meet the demands of the bank. They say it doesn't give residents enough time to provide input.