Gina Gould outside Schenectady's Museum of Innovation and Science, which has agreed to stay in the city for at least another five years.
Schenectady Museum of Innovation and Science head Gina Gould looks out at a relatively new roof that continues to leak on Wednesday, Jan. 10, 2024.
SCHENECTADY — The Museum of Innovation and Science isn’t moving to Albany. Or Clifton Park. Or Venus. It’s staying in Schenectady, at least for another five years.
That’s the deal hammered out during a meeting Tuesday and quickly announced to the public by Assemblyman Angelo Santabarbara, Schenectady County Legislature Chair Gary Hughes, and museum president Gina Gould. The details are vague, for sure, but the outline of the agreement is promising.
Essentially, Schenectady County has agreed to fund a report by an independent engineering firm that will determine whether the building’s basement is salvageable and whether valuable museum archives stored there need to be moved. If they do, the potential exists for a 15,000-square-foot addition to be built at the site on the edge of Schenectady’s downtown.
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You’ll notice how that last sentence slipped into the passive tense. It isn’t clear who, exactly, would build and pay for the building, which Gould, in an interview Wednesday, said could cost roughly $15 million.
“I’m very positive that we’re moving in the right direction and the archives will get the protection they need,” Gould told me. “Our collections are important to the world and now people are starting to understand that.”
Two months ago, I met with Gould and Neil Golub, the former Price Chopper head who chairs miSci’s board, and listened as they sounded an alarm. The museum, they told me, was in danger of shuttering given hydraulic and structural issues in its basement. It needed a new home and, most likely, some sort of help from taxpayers.
By that point, miSci had already weighed moving to the former Union Station in downtown Albany but the cost made that unrealistic. Afterward, moving miSci to the New York State Museum was considered, however briefly, yet state officials had no appetite for pulling an asset from Schenectady.
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Diligent readers may also remember that Phil Barrett, the Clifton Park supervisor who heads the Saratoga County Board of Supervisors, floated the notion of moving the museum northward.
About a week ago, though, Santabarbara and Hughes threw cold water on all the speculation, declaring in a letter to Gould that staying at the existing location, despite its problems, was the only feasible option.
“If you built a new or retrofitted a building roughly the size of the current museum or 40,000 square feet, we estimate the cost at more than $20 million,” the letter said. “As the museum desires a larger space, the cost could easily surpass $40 million. With no successful fundraising team in place and no banking relationship to advance funds, and no new revenue sources bearing fruit, a new location seems fiscally irresponsible.”
The best plan forward, Santabarbara and Hughes added in that letter, was a thorough analysis of the building, paid for by the county. And that’s what was agreed to Tuesday.
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Also in the works are plans to better landscape and light the building, making it more attractive and visible. Awareness of the museum, Gould told me, has already spiked amid the drama of recent months, leading to an attendance rise. More good news!
But I don’t want to make it sound as though miSci is saved. Nothing has been signed, sealed or delivered. As one county official said, the agreement is basically a commitment to work together toward long-term solutions, with the museum promising to stay in the city for at least five more years.
That’s progress, I’d say, and it’s happening, as I reported last week, while state officials consider ways to address the decline of the State Museum — and are even weighing the addition of a science museum for children. It is possible, then, that the region could emerge with significantly improved museums in Schenectady and Albany.
Maybe we shouldn’t get ahead of ourselves. The devil usually worms into the details, while the hard work required to get things done often dulls grand ambitions.
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But it’s an unqualified good that miSci seems primed to stay in Schenectady. As I’ve noted before, the museum’s departure would have been a blow and an unflattering commentary, given that miSci’s exhibits and archives document the city’s history of innovation and the discoveries of General Electric. Schenectady’s story is best told in Schenectady.
From a regional perspective, though, the important thing has always been that miSci survives. And on that front, the newly announced agreement is an encouraging step. Knock on wood, fingers crossed or whichever superstition you prefer.
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