Take an exclusive look inside Coast’s new aquarium. Will COVID-19 change its future?
Despite the uncertainty COVID-19 has created, nobody who has seen it can deny the Mississippi Aquarium will be a magical place.
The multimillion-dollar aquarium was set to open in April, but Mississippi Aquarium CEO David Kimmel announced in March that it would not be ready for people and animals. Construction is continuing during the new coronavirus pandemic.
The aquarium is tentatively set to open in September.
Mississippi’s partial shutdown is giving the aquarium time to add features now possible because additional funding has been secured, Gulfport City Councilman Rusty Walker said.
But the aquarium’s board of directors is also taking a hard look at the budget, which the Sun Herald requested but did not receive. As a nonprofit organization, the aquarium and its fundraising Aquarium Foundation are not subject to the Mississippi Public Records Act.
Steve Hendrix, attorney for the nonprofit Gulfport Redevelopment Commission, said the budget is undergoing revisions.
“One of the big issues with respect to anybody budgeting in the aquarium world, or the entertainment world, is you just have questions as to what your attendance is going to look like,” Hendrix said. “We don’t know that.”
“No one knows the impact of what we’re calling the COVID hangover. We don’t know how quickly people will respond and re-engage in tourism-related activities.”
Even before the pandemic, some residents questioned whether the aquarium could draw enough visitors to sustain itself, given the market’s size and competition.
The project’s pre-opening budget gives some indication of how expensive the aquarium will be to maintain. The city’s economic development agency, the Gulfport Redevelopment Commission, maintains the pre-opening budget and provided a copy in response to a Sun Herald records request.
The document shows:
▪ Pre-opening expenses, including construction costs, have jumped from $93 million in 2017 to more than $103 million.
▪ Kimmel and his company, Kimmel Management Services, are compensated separately through a contract with GRC. The engineer and former chief operating officer of the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta has been paid $1.25 million to date out of a base contract total of $1.4 million beginning January 2017, plus expenses.
The total contract price is $1.7 million for management services provided by Kimmel, his company and a second company he worked for early in the project, H.J. Russell & Co.
▪ In addition to Kimmel’s compensation, the aquarium paid $2.7 million for pre-opening staff between April 2018 and April 14, 2020. Total pre-opening staff costs, the GRC budget shows, are around $4 million.
▪ Life support systems for aquarium animals are extensive and crucial. Without an aquarium budget, the estimated cost of life support is unknown. But 2017 estimates put the power bill alone at $650,000 a year.
▪ To break even, the aquarium estimates it will need an average of 1,000 visitors a day, but COVID-19 could require social distancing and timed entries to limit crowds.
“With the COVID issues, the aquarium business and the operating board of the aquarium are reviewing our attendance numbers basically all the time,” said aquarium Chief Operating Officer Kurt Allen.
“We’re trying to establish what a normal day might be after we open. We still have a little time and we have the luxury of seeing what other (aquariums) are doing.”
Future aquarium salaries confidential
Kimmel told the Sun Herald he will not release salary information for aquarium employees included in the Mississippi Aquarium budget.
He said the aquarium has already hired about 50 people, mostly animal and veterinary staff. Those salaries are part of GRC’s pre-opening budget.
The employees are caring for fish, otters, penguins, birds and other animals being held at off-site locations.
The aquarium also has a small education-and-guest-experience staff readying programs and procedures, and doing social media outreach.
Kimmel said future staffing might have to be trimmed because of the pandemic.
Aquarium is one of a kind
Only one thing is certain, the Mississippi Aquarium is shaping up to be unlike any other in the country, from its location on Gulfport’s waterfront with sweeping views of the harbor to every detail in the design.
The design is unique, with as much to see outdoors as inside the main building, Aquatic Wonders.
The LED lighting and decor is designed to make visitors feel as if they are underwater when they enter Aquatic Wonders. The star exhibit, a three-story tank, features a suspended acrylic tunnel with 360-degree views of sharks, rays, grouper, angel fish, red snapper and many others.
It is believed to be the only tunnel of its design in an American aquarium.
The main window in the aquarium tank is 30 by 25 feet and weighs 40 tons. It had to be lifted through the top of the building.
The outdoor space tells the story of the Mississippi Coast’s estuarine environment, meandering along a walkway from brown water where alligators lurk to a blue pool at the opposite end where dolphins swim.
Acrylic walls line a lower walkway, allowing visitors underwater views of the freshwater river and the fish that live in South Mississippi.
Both indoor and outdoor exhibits allow interaction with the animals through touch pools. The dolphin exhibit also includes a two-story acrylic window for viewing the marine mammals while they are underwater.
Allen loves to show off the aquarium and hear the comments from visitors.
Thousands of motorists on U.S. 90 pass the construction site daily, but it doesn’t give them a real view of what’s in store.
“I think we are poised to be great,” said Allen, who for years managed hotels and resorts before signing on as vice president and general manager of Marineland Dolphin Adventure in St. Augustine, Florida. He met Kimmel when he went to work at the Georgia Aquarium.
He said the transition from hotels and resorts to marine mammals was not difficult. He’s still in the hospitality industry.
“Understanding how the market works and who the customer is, I think, is key,” he said.
“It boils down to giving customers a great experience and, when you do that, selling is a lot easier.”
The comments Allen has heard most often on pre-opening tours of the aquarium:
“I had no idea how big it was!”
“I didn’t know how much was here!”
“I can’t wait to bring my kids.”
He said aquarium ticket prices of $29.95 for adults and $24.95 from children ages 3-12 are in line with admission prices at other aquariums, and he doesn’t expect them to change.
‘Whim of politics’ won’t hold sway
Councilman Walker has had some sleepless nights over the aquarium, he said. But he is pleased today with how the project is coming together.
“Everything has been done to the highest standard we could reasonably do,” he said on a recent walk-through. “I think we’ll be able to compete with any area in the country.”
He pointed out the gift shop, a key source of aquarium revenues, and another building, Changing Tides, that will feature traveling exhibits and offer space for public and private events.
The Gulfport Redevelopment Commission bought the land for the aquarium in late 2014 and early 2015, paying about $1.4 million an acre for 10 acres. A February 2014 appraisal of one parcel in the acreage showed it was worth about $654,000 an acre.
“We did buy some property above appraised value because that’s the only way the sellers would sell it,” Hendrix said.
The aquarium bought property from at least 11 owners he said, the largest being First Baptist Church, which moved north of Interstate 10 after Hurricane Katrina all but destroyed the church.
The city’s total investment is $35 million in bond funds, money that has already been borrowed and is being repaid.
Other pre-opening funds come from the state, BP oil catastrophe reimbursements, revenue from oil and gas leases in the Gulf of Mexico and historic tax credits.
Walker believes it was essential for the aquarium to have a nonprofit operator. The Mississippi Aquarium leases the property from GRC.
If the nonprofit organization fails, GRC would need to find a new aquarium tenant. The animals, including at least four dolphins, are not included with the property.
“If you put this under political control, it would have failed,” Walker said. “We’ve got so many partners on this project. What we didn’t want to do was have that investment and have that money spent and make it subject to the whim of politics.”
“This city is just the landlord . . . If the aquarium failed tomorrow, we won’t owe anymore on this building than we did yesterday.”
Walker believes demand will be high for aquarium visits, based on what he’s seeing and hearing.
“People are looking for family-friendly entertainment,” he said. “They’re looking for places to take their children. If you look at social media, there are people from more than 100 miles away wondering when we are going to open.”
Who’s paying $103.5M for aquarium pre-opening?
Mississippi Aquarium funding sources are listed below:
- $24.5 million: State bond
- $4 million: State bond #2
- $16.95 million: Restore Act
- $35 million: City bonds
- $8 million: GOMESA (Gulf oil lease funding)
- $1.2 million: Historic tax credits (estimated)
- $360,000: Paycheck Protection Program (CARES Act) loan
- $1.97 million: MS Aquarium Foundation cash
- $5.2 million: Foundation pledges
- $6.5 million GRC loan
$103.5 million: Total funding sources
This story was originally published May 18, 2020 at 5:50 AM.
