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NEWSLETTER
April 26, 2010

By John Adamski

Another Milestone!

Last Thursday, the Board of Trustees adopted a resolution to select Keuka Lake State Park as the future home of the Finger Lakes Cultural & Natural History Museum. The vote was unanimous with one abstention.

During the last year, the Site Selection Committee, under the direction of Don Naetzker, worked long and hard to identify the best site out of 19 that were submitted for consideration. In February, the field was narrowed down to two: Geneva/Seneca Lake State Park and Keuka Lake State Park.

For more than two months, the Site Selection Committee and the Board of Trustees have been wrestling with the most difficult decision of the entire site selection process: Choosing the right home for the Finger Lakes Museum between two very beautiful but distinctively different sites. After enlisting ConsultEcon, a Boston-based market research firm in March, it was determined that the project is viable at either site although for different reasons.

While the Seneca Lake site has significant advantages—central location among them—the Board determined that the Keuka Lake site more closely resembles the requirements that were originally established in the Strategic Plan, especially as they relate to natural history programming.

Among the advantages that tipped the scales toward Keuka are these:

• There is 700 feet of intimate lakefront with a level, sandy beach.
• The natural history element of the project is predicted to draw the most visitors. The rolling, hilly terrain, ravines, brook, woods, and areas of natural succession that exist there are ideal for wildlife exhibits in natural habitats.
• Several hundred acres of land are available for wildlife habitats and interpretive use—now or in the future.
• A 350-car paved parking lot already exists.
• Keuka College has offered to add Museum Sciences to its curriculum and become a partner in the educational aspect of the Museum.
• Yates County and Keuka-area business leaders have pledged over $2 million in startup funding.
• In addition, the Branchport School, which is presently vacant, has been purchased by the Finger Lakes Visitors Association for use as the Museum’s base of operation during the project’s startup phases. The building will provide 15,000 square-feet for business offices and initial programming as well as storage for the acquisition of artifacts and collections. Its 13-acre site offers navigable water access to Keuka Lake.

Finger Lakes State Parks and the Finger Lakes Museum Project will undertake a joint master plan for the entire 620-acre park. The New York State Office of Parks, Recreation & Historic Preservation has been cooperative and enthused over the proposal and we look forward to working with them.

Although the Museum will be built on lands leased from Finger Lakes State Parks, it will remain a privately-owned and mostly privately-funded institution.

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