Grumet: Texas Memorial Museum gets $8 million facelift. Here's where that money is going

Carolyn Connerat apologized for all the ruckus on Friday, but really, this was what she wanted: Crews at the Texas Memorial Museum busily installing new lights, adding fresh paint, replacing bathroom fixtures, updating the security system and polishing the art deco bronze doors of the natural history museum that has been closed for the past 15 months.

An app on Connerat’s phone counted 75 days until reopening.

“I’ll have a few sleepless nights,” the interim museum director told me, chuckling. “But we will be ready.”

The museum will start with a few invitation-only events. Then it will have a grand reopening Sept. 23 for the general public — a triumphant comeback for a museum that, not that long ago, seemed as imperiled as the wild bison haunting its third-floor displays.

I reported less than two years ago that the Legislature cut the last sliver of state funding for this museum, built in the 1930s on the University of Texas campus to house prehistoric fossils and taxidermied wildlife. Generations of Austinites came here on class field trips, craning their necks at the giant winged pterosaur in the great hall and staring down the razor-toothed mosasaur menacing the first floor. But by March 2022, dwindling staff and the need for a reboot prompted the temporary closure.

And now? The Legislature just gave the museum a one-time $8 million infusion through a supplementary funding bill (Senate Bill 30) signed by Gov. Greg Abbott this month. The fall 2023 reopening promised by the museum’s “We’re evolving” banners is very much on track.

“It was just this moment of: Yes!” said Connerat, who saw the $8 million had been proposed but couldn’t exhale until it was approved. “This is a vote of confidence in our plan and what we're doing. It was just sheer joy.”

In the years leading up to the temporary closure, the museum had suffered from benign neglect, as the state and UT whittled down its annual funding. But in the past year and a half, UT and an advisory group have worked hard to put the museum on a successfully self-sufficient path.

“It really is a gem for this city, and a state attraction as well,” said state Rep. Gina Hinojosa, a Democrat who championed the $8 million for this museum in her district. “I'm glad that we're valuing it appropriately now and working to sustain it."

Part preservation, part evolution

The exhibits long enjoyed by visitors — the fossilized predators on the first floor, the Quetzalcoatlus soaring above the great hall, the wildlife dioramas on the third floor — will remain intact. But a few exciting additions are coming (stay tuned!).

Connerat previously planned to reopen the museum in six-month increments, starting with the great hall, then updating and reopening each floor of exhibits with more detailed signs and interactive displays. Now she plans to reopen the entire museum this fall, but there will be times when an exhibit is roped off while crews work on upgrades.

“I want to make sure that when people come here, that they see those exhibits that they have loved for decades,” Connerat said.

The museum is still raising money for the updated signs and touchscreen displays, which altogether could cost “a few million more,” she said.

The main work happening now, thanks to money from UT and the $8 million from the state, is fixing up the 85-year-old building — an architectural treasure of Texas limestone and French rouge marble, initiated at a groundbreaking with President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, no less — so it can draw more museum visitors and serve as a venue for special events. Venue rentals will create a new revenue stream to help make the museum financially self-sufficient.

Connerat said the museum has 16 events planned from September through December, half of them revenue-generating. One is a wedding.

The great hall, where visitors first step into the museum, is already transforming. The dusty drapes have come off the giant westward windows, allowing sunlight to pour into the gallery through patterned glass blocks, all newly cleaned and resealed. Soon, retractable shades will be added to filter out ultraviolet radiation while still allowing natural light and a view of the distinctive windows.

Offices once tucked behind the great hall have been moved to the fourth floor, opening up a sizable new exhibit space.

Even the name of the museum is due for a makeover. Connerat said UT will announce the updated name later this summer, something that better communicates this is a science and natural history museum.

At last, a victory

It’s impossible to overstate the importance of the $8 million from the state. It’s covering much of the building's restoration. But also, as the museum starts aggressively courting philanthropic donors, the state funding signals the kind of support that donors want to see before they open their checkbooks.

Richard Craig, a member of the museum’s advisory board, saw that dynamic when he founded the Pease Park Conservancy, a nonprofit supporting a city-owned park.

Potential donors "would always want to know, what is the city’s buy-in here? What is their skin in the game?” Craig said of the park effort. “And unless you can show that the city has stepped up, that cools the ardor of donors who might otherwise give. If it’s a public institution, they want to see that the public entity’s committed to it.”

In the case of the museum, that means UT and the state. Craig said the support from UT President Jay Hartzell and College of Natural Sciences Dean David Vanden Bout has been essential.

“Victories are so hard to come by these days,” said Craig, a lifelong Austinite who took field trips to the museum as a kid and now serves on the board helping preserve it. The $8 million “is a real victory that we all can be proud of.”

Especially because it ensures a vital keeper of Texas' past now has a bright future.

Grumet is the Statesman’s Metro columnist. Her column, ATX in Context, contains her opinions. Share yours via email at bgrumet@statesman.com or via Twitter at @bgrumet. Find her previous work at statesman.com/news/columns.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Texas museum gets $8 million facelift. Here's where that money is going