Aquarium foundation wants to collaborate with Virginia Beach, pause search for private operator

VIRGINIA BEACH — For the first time since the city started looking into privatizing the Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center, the foundation that owns the animals and exhibits publicly shared its desire to be a part of any future decisions.

Dan Peterson, chair of the Virginia Aquarium Foundation, addressed the City Council at a meeting Tuesday.

“I don’t know if a third-party operator is viable or not,” Peterson said. “I don’t know if the foundation could take on more of an operating role. We need to assess all of these different factors, and we need to assess all of these different business models so that we can come back to council.”

The price tag on a multimillion-dollar renovation and expansion of the aquarium presented to the City Council last year was an estimate and not an engineered proposal, Peterson said, and while the facility’s tanks are aging, their actual condition has not been formally assessed.

The city operates the aquarium and owns its buildings. The City Council decided last year to explore the option of private ownership of the aquarium after learning the tanks that hold the animals are deteriorating and will cost millions to repair. Two private entities, the owners of Ripley’s Believe It or Not! and Dollywood, expressed interest.

The foundation wants the city to split the cost of a $100,000 structural engineering study to determine the condition of the aquarium’s three largest tanks, which hold seals, sharks and sea turtles, to figure out the sense of urgency and real cost, Peterson said.

He also recommended the city participate in a $50,000 operation to conduct borings into the aquarium’s concrete foundation to assess its viability.

City Manager Patrick Duhaney said a comprehensive assessment of both the foundation and the city’s assets will be needed. The foundation is in the process of assessing what it owns because a third-party operator would want to own or lease the animals and exhibits, Peterson said at Tuesday’s meeting.

The City Council agreed it will vote on a resolution in September to work with the foundation to come up with viable options for the aquarium’s future.

Peterson previously stressed in emails to the City Council that the foundation felt it was being left out of the process and wanted to share its perspective.

After hearing Peterson speak and seeing a crowd of aquarium foundation members and volunteers in the audience, Councilwoman Barbara Henley said she believes the city took the foundation’s role for granted.

“We appreciate what we have; we just want to make it better,” Henley said.

After the meeting, former city Councilman John Uhrin, who serves on the aquarium foundation, said city discussions with private entities haven’t centered on actual costs, which is critical because it currently costs more to operate the aquarium than what it brings in. The city allocates roughly $2 million each fiscal year for aquarium capital improvements and subsidizes operations with roughly $7.4 million a year.

“There’s no possibility where you’re going to have a private-sector partner come in and make it profitable particularly after they have to pay the foundation for the assets we have, which are on the books for $30 million,” said Uhrin. “All of that talk was for naught.”

A city audit of the aquarium will be presented publicly next month.

The city’s consideration of alternative facility ownership or operators has created turmoil among aquarium staff and members of the foundation for nearly a year. Peterson had said in March that several employees have left the aquarium due to the uncertainty of its future. He wrote to the council asking members to “not take any direction towards possible privatization” until hearing from stakeholders.

Virginia Aquarium, which opened in 1986, is the third-most visited attraction in the state behind Kings Dominion and Busch Gardens theme parks. It holds 650,000 gallons of water in exhibits and has more than 250 species — including mammals, fish, birds, and reptiles.

The city and foundation recently invested $47.9 million for three aquarium projects; however, major renovations and an expansion of the main building are needed, with cost estimates between $50 million to $200 million depending on the scope of work. Peterson said the highest estimate included a $60 million parking deck, which can be eliminated.

Stacy Parker, 757-222-5125, stacy.parker@pilotonline.com