Whipped Cream Difficulties

Have you ever heard of the Great Platte River Road Archway?

Neither had I, until I read this morning’s NYT. The Archway is intended as a monument to the Westward Expansion. It sits near the site of Fort Kearny and the intersection of three major westward trails (Oregon, Mormon, and California).

The Archway actually crosses I-80, and weighs 1,500 tons. How much did it cost to build? The NYT isn’t clear on that, but we’ll come back to it in a minute.

A New York consulting firm that predicted more than a million visitors annually did so under the presumption that gas prices would not eclipse $2 a gallon, that there would be no recession, that the exhibit would change over time and that a highway exit would be built right next to the Archway.

Buried in there is a further assumption that families still vacation by car, which makes it easier to stop at places like the Archway. But I’ve touched on that before, and there’s no reason to belabor the point.

Especially since I bet you can guess what happened next.

Thirteen years later, the Archway is flat broke.
Attendance peaked the first year at nearly 250,000 and has been falling ever since. Last year, fewer than 50,000 visitors strolled through the turnstiles. And although a bankruptcy judge recently approved a plan to relieve the Archway of its final $20 million in debt, its future remains uncertain. Archway officials say the museum could survive through the end of the year, but would need hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars for long-term security. And that will come only with the approval of the Kearney City Council and county board members — several of whom are skeptical.

Among other things, that new highway exit took twelve years to build.

By the time it became apparent that the number of projected visits (and ticket revenue) was vastly overestimated, the Archway was already underwater, nearly $60 million in debt from the construction and start-up costs. That money had come from a bond sold by the city, and backed by the foundation.

$60 million in debt, folks. But don’t worry: “Through bankruptcy proceedings, that debt has been lifted.” And now the folks behind the Archway plan to ask the city and county governments to cough up $200,000 a year (each, so $400,000 total) for the next three years.

If the Archway were to become the destination that its creators had hoped for, it would help rural communities by attracting customers to hotels, restaurants and other businesses, said Roger Jasnoch, the director of the Kearney Visitors Bureau and an Archway board member.

And again, we come back around to the same point I made earlier. I have nothing against Nebraska; one of these days, I hope that I can visit the SAC Museum. But I’m odd. I’m not sure that most families do driving vacations these days, and the Archway just doesn’t strike me as compelling enough a destination for people to fly into Lincoln or Omaha and drive halfway across the state.