New Idea-- new direction

H.crispa · #1 11/23/2006, 01:45 AM

Ron and I were talking today because I had a big idea that I think our club could accomplish. It could unite us all behind a common purpose as we were in the beginning. We have become somewhat splintered and unfocussed. Kind of like a bunch of reef geeks wandering aimlessly around in a world of artificial reefs. Don't get me wrong. we have a great bunch of people who volunteer their time and expertise and all, united in a common purpose of spreading knowlege and captive propagation (in a nutshell) and I personally feel that the CVRC is great because of its organic structure and informal nature.

All that said, I would like to see us think bigger.... a lot bigger. We have a diverse group with lots of connections and resources. I believe if we all come together and work on this project seriously in our own way but in a coordinated manner, we can do it.

What I propose ladies and gentlemen, is that we build a public aquarium! Strictly saltwater and with a HUGE emphasis on reefs. Afterall, no one goes to an aquarium to gaze at the Largemouth Bass display. Hell no. They go to see "the pretty fish" and other cool stuff. The West Virginia Aquarium... totally privately funded, because if we get the government involved, not only will they screw it up but they will usurp control over the whole thing and make it an impossible project... bla bla bla. Lester Raines could be a possible ally. He loves this stuff and I think he tried to put a zoo together in the past. If we can get enough business sponsors to get it going, we can grow and sell enough coral to KEEP it going-- that along with ticket sales for admission. Then, we can improve our facilities and keep improving the aquarium etc etc etc. We can make this the best aquarium on the east coast that is non-profit, totally self-sustaining via a boatload of captive propagation as part of its foundation. Basically, we could run this place largely with volunteers and we could have gorgeous displays and massive propagation facilities to REALLY realize our mission statement. No other club has taken on a task like this as far as I know but we can do it.

Who's with us?

phljess · #2 11/23/2006, 02:07 AM

$

mcox33 · #3 11/23/2006, 02:24 AM

jmccown · #4 11/23/2006, 08:02 AM

On a scale basis, how big are we talking? I've been to many, many public aquariums and they are mega bucks in getting operational. Where would we find or build a facility?

LtPiper · #5 11/23/2006, 09:18 AM

I wonder if maybe it's something we could approach the Clay Center about. Maybe get a space there?

jmccown · #6 11/23/2006, 09:36 AM

There's an idea.

mcox33 · #7 11/23/2006, 10:31 AM

The Clay Center would probably try to control the Aquarium so somebody check into getting it in writing that we would remain in control. That is a lot of work and expense to turn over to them. JMO

mcox33 · #8 11/23/2006, 10:33 AM

How about an old shopping center Like the one by the Dunbar Bridge? If we get non-profit status for the aquarium perhaps the owner would donate the building.

Then when the time comes get the utility companies to donate the utilities, LFS's to donate the salt that kind of thing.

H. Crispa are you going to build this thing out of acrylic, or glass??

LtPiper · #9 11/23/2006, 11:14 AM

Well for what it's worth if we are going to go that route Lester Raines old body shop building on the other end of the Dunbar bridge is empty...... If he owns it............

Brock Fluharty · #10 11/23/2006, 01:43 PM

This would be fantastic. It's a shame that it will inevitably be south of me though...I would gladly volunterr wherever I possibly could. If I lived down there, I would have LOVED to be able to setup a seahorse or octopus tank. IMO, a public aquarium sounds like a fantastic idea, but we wold have to start off pretty small, only a few tanks, then get the admission money, and build it up from there. I have an empty 20 high with a stand that we could use for a frag tank or whatever once this thing gets off the ground. And frags, macro, etc.

Reef4Fun · #11 11/23/2006, 07:00 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Brock Fluharty
This would be fantastic. It's a shame that it will inevitably be south of me though...I would gladly volunterr wherever I possibly could. If I lived down there, I would have LOVED to be able to setup a seahorse or octopus tank. IMO, a public aquarium sounds like a fantastic idea, but we wold have to start off pretty small, only a few tanks, then get the admission money, and build it up from there. I have an empty 20 high with a stand that we could use for a frag tank or whatever once this thing gets off the ground. And frags, macro, etc.

Aren't we talking about HUGE tanks, I mean ones that would be custom built, like in the thousands of gallons? I am sure we would not go with small tanks would we? I think it would be a great idea, the biggest concern would be money. Where or how would we get money for such a thing, I know we would need sponsors and so on, I just don't know how to do this with such an undertaking, the amount of money needed to even think about such a thing would be huge. Would the sponsoring and donations be for a proposed project and start such a thing after the amount was reached for construction? I am all for it, I just do not know how to go about it. Would we take bids for constuction, plumbing and so on? Would we sub-contract these things out? As for filling the aquarium or aquariums, I think that would be our least of worries. I think we would have enough item donations for that. I would think that a warehouse type building that is for sale would be the best place to start, and remodel it, given if it were in the right location (which should be Charleston don't you think)? I am just thinking of ideas. As far as keeping it running, like the NC Aquarium, they take donations at the door (at least they used to, they may now charge admissioin) This would be a wonderful undertaking, if we could get the finacnes. I am not sure WV is a rich enough state for this though, but I don't know.

Brock Fluharty · #12 11/23/2006, 10:18 PM

Right, but I was willing to donate it for a frag tank,, refugium, or whatever.

mcox33 · #13 11/23/2006, 11:22 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Reef4Fun
Aren't we talking about HUGE tanks, I mean ones that would be custom built, like in the thousands of gallons? I am sure we would not go with small tanks would we? I think it would be a great idea, the biggest concern would be money. Where or how would we get money for such a thing, I know we would need sponsors and so on, I just don't know how to do this with such an undertaking, the amount of money needed to even think about such a thing would be huge. Would the sponsoring and donations be for a proposed project and start such a thing after the amount was reached for construction? I am all for it, I just do not know how to go about it. Would we take bids for constuction, plumbing and so on? Would we sub-contract these things out? As for filling the aquarium or aquariums, I think that would be our least of worries. I think we would have enough item donations for that. I would think that a warehouse type building that is for sale would be the best place to start, and remodel it, given if it were in the right location (which should be Charleston don't you think)? I am just thinking of ideas. As far as keeping it running, like the NC Aquarium, they take donations at the door (at least they used to, they may now charge admissioin) This would be a wonderful undertaking, if we could get the finacnes. I am not sure WV is a rich enough state for this though, but I don't know.

Last time my daughter went to the NC Aquarium she said it was $20.00 admission. My grandson just went to the one at Myrtle Beach SC and again the admission is $20.00.

But I think the club could do this. The first thing would be to get a non-profit license and status so that we could take donations that were tax deductible. Then we need a building to use. Not ideal but we could move later on. Perhaps the old Rivers Edge building would work. Jason you know that building what is your idea on that.

If we could get utility companies to donate the utilities for even several months or a year then we might have a chance.

Then once the building is found we could hold extra meetings that were say a painting meeting, clean up meeting, setup, plumbing that kind of thing. The club could do most of the work,. I am sure some of the equipment manufacturers would donate equipment once we get non-profit status. This can be done.

JMO

I am available to help with fundraising. I use to be good at it.

Salty Bginners · #14 11/24/2006, 12:08 AM

OMG OMG OMG OMG JASON! BRILLANT SIR! I almost peed myself when I read this. And as Phill said. $ and lots of $.

Reef4Fun · #15 11/24/2006, 12:47 AM

personally I feel that St.Albans is too out of the way for something like this. Charleston would be about the only place, other than Huntington, that would be a large enough city for a public attraction like this. The old Californian is the perfect size though, and it is in a place with great parking and so on. I guess it could be an alternative from Charleston or Huntington. What needs to be thought of is location..location, location, location. If it is too out of the way, they will not come.

mcox33 · #16 11/24/2006, 12:54 AM

Rivers Edge has great Parking. The building is huge.

If we could work with The City and get them to redevelop the shopping center there it could work. The shopping center is actually just out the back door of the Rivers Edge.

If it is good it will work. Although I would think Nitro would be even better. Because you just get off the interstate at one exit and back on at the next. Perhaps I should talk to Rusty and see what he thinks about a possible Nitro Location.

Reef4Fun · #17 11/25/2006, 03:44 PM

St.Albans will not redevelop the old main plaza. I have lived here my entire life, they will not put the money into something that is in a bad location (their opinion) They have declaired that a historical place and have tried to preserve the brick road and so on. Traffic in St.Albans in that area just doesn't exsist anymore, it is a dead area. Nitro and St.Albans are dead towns for huge attractions, IMO. For something that would end up costing a million bucks, the location would almost have to be Charleston or Huntington. All my opionions though.

Nathan4Wvu · #18 11/25/2006, 08:10 PM

Yea i would go with the charleston area NO one knows where St Albans is outside this area after all it is the only town in the kanawha vally the interstate missed lol thats why i think that area is dieing. Nitro is not any where near as bad. St albans is like the town in the MOVIE CARS lol.

Aquayne_wv · #19 11/27/2006, 07:58 PM

This has been a Pipe dream of mine for some years now. I believe the only way that anything like this has a chance is if there is an objective beyond the love of the hobby. As much as our local anarchist is against public funding it is most likely the only way something this capital intensive can have a prayer. My vision for the project is to model the Guyan Water shed or similar. Complete with aquatic habitats starting surface water, ground water then montain streams ending with coral reef. If the focus is on education and conservation money from DNR may be available. It will be Far beyond the abilities for "Volunteers" to build. I have a wonderful VHS tape of the building of the Newport Aquiarium near Cinnci.
Location will have to be in a central location near an attraction for traffic. The Californian is a lousy location or it would not go under so often. There was a failed aquarium at Beach Fork Dam. It was a nice big tank but the Rangers strocked it by catching fish with hook and line from the lake. They fed the fish only bread. They did not have a clue. It turned into a septic tank and was abandoned. Imagine what it could have been. A model of groundwater to stream to lake back to stream. The biotopes would have been beautiful. In the book, Dynamic Aquaria, (Addey and Loveland) they describe a model of the Chesapeake bay water shed at the Smithsonian.
A state park may be an avenue. A real proposition complete with real and accurate estimates for construction could be presented. It has to be in a format so that if the Governor says "yes, great idea, go for it!" we know what to do next for it to happen.
Showmanship is very important. Ripley's aquariums are a good example. Even they suffer problems with getting repeat visits. A display that changes seasonally or according to current events would be interresting. Things that could generate money would be a trout or Arctic Char fishing pond with the catch prepared on site. These have been popular in Japan. Charity events such as lobster races complete with sponsors to raise money and interrest of the common people.
Just my 2 cents
Wayne

mcox33 · #20 11/28/2006, 08:06 AM

Grants would be good but we would have to becareful. I for 1 would not want DNR or anyone else stepping in and feeding our fish and coral bread. JMO. Yes if someone knows about grant writing requests, that is an idea. If not perhaps my daughter will, she has done this type of writing in the past.

But first we need a location. And we know which members are more likely to contribute time to this project and would need it fairly centrally located to those people as well as the interstate. This club managed to get started in Nitro, I say the Aquarium could and perhaps should be in Nitro. If we make it good and get the word out that it is here, the people will come. Perhaps The Wild Wonderful WV magazine (sp) would be will to feature us. After all it will be the first Public Aquarium in our state. And I for 1 am sick of seeing Charleston get everything and do nothing with it.

Nitro near 40th street area might be a possibility. But we would also need to know building size and cost to build. In other words we need a rough print to start out and then work from there.

Or perhaps up by the Nitro Walmart area. There are a lot of people who go out there all the time and the new movie theater is out there. I bet that would be a good place to start looking. It is also near the Dog Track which is also a big attraction.

JM 2%

Aquayne_wv · #21 11/28/2006, 08:55 PM

What kind of scale are you considering. The aquariums I have visited were 10's of Millions of Dollars to build.

H.crispa · #22 12/01/2006, 12:33 PM

Well, now that I've trolled for responses long enough, it seems that many of you guys think this canbe done. Questions about location, size, tanks etc. can all be answered later. What we need to do now is come up with sponsors. If we can't get the money together-- its all just a pipedream. We need to put our heads together to come up with ways to raise money, people to approach for sponsorship.

10s of millions? I doubt that is within our reach, but imagine what we could build with a hundred grand. Keep in mind we are talking about reefs only-- No penguins or polar bears, no FW stuff with silver marijuanas swimming around in clumps of amazon swords. Most aquariums devote maybe 15% of their space to SW. Thats all we will have so we can get by with a fraction of the resources. As long as we specialize, we might be able to pull this off.

sixliner6 · #23 12/01/2006, 07:43 PM

Write Jack Whittaker a letter

Lee_Bay · #24 12/01/2006, 09:31 PM

LOL I'm sure he would contribute to see the sexy shrimp!!!!

Reef4Fun · #25 12/03/2006, 10:11 PM

http://www.oldcolony.com/listings/de...1%26SRPage%3D6
If there were funding, something like this could be remodled, has parking and so on. Also, Mary's idea about the Dunbar shopping center is excellent, good location and all.