Commentary: Midway Museum
By Joanne DiBona, Communications Director
After almost a decade of negotiations with the US Navy and local agencies, our vision of seeing the US Midway, home to the San Diego Aircraft Carrier Museum, berthed in our Big Bay is closer than ever to being realized. By Spring of next year, the aircraft carrier museum is scheduled to open its doors to San Diego residents and to visitors from around the world!
There are still some final matters to negotiate. Firstly, the Navy recently decided it no longer has an operational need for Navy Pier 11A. We are working with the Navy to be awarded the pier, but it’s a process that will take about six months to complete. And it’s a process that is intimately connected with approval of our ship application.
The application review is progressing well as we work to answer Navy questions and provide additional financial resources requested by the Navy.
So as we turn the corner in our efforts to establish the San Diego Aircraft Carrier Museum, the financial support of the community is more important than ever. We are faced with establishing a unique, floating “business” with all the associated expenses you might imagine and many more!
For example, not many new businesses face wildlife habitat enhancement expenses, towing expenses that run in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, five-figure insurance premiums, and extensive capital improvement costs for everything from pier strengthening to exhibit development.
The good news is that more than 1,000 donors have stepped up and supported the project. From $5 to $25,000, every donation is critically needed. There are a variety of ways individuals and organizations can contribute—each with their own set of benefits—and can be reviewed by logging onto the Midway Magic website at www.midway.org.
Midway Magic will not be just another ship museum. In addition to paying tribute to the brave men and women who have served to protect this country’s shores, the museum will give visitors the opportunity to see an unparalleled collection of historical memorabilia, aircraft on the flight deck, exhibits depicting famous carrier battles, and much more!
Imagine the majestic Midway, berthed at Navy Pier near the foot of Broadway, featuring flight simulation virtual reality rides where visitors can experience an F-8J crusader about to "land" on the flight deck, where they can view interactive exhibits which bring them on board the Midway's Vietnam deployment, where they can tour a historic naval aircraft "up close and personal."
All this is part of the Midway Magic plan, which will give San Diego an unprecedented opportunity to attract thousands of visitors to the area to experience a part of our region's unique military history. It will also allow us to pay tribute to the role of the armed services in San Diego as well as honor the more than 200,000 Americans who served aboard the USS Midway over the past fifty years.
Today more than ever before, San Diego’s visitor industry is in need of a new attraction to add to the palette of activities we now offer to tourists, convention delegates, and San Diego County residents alike. The tragic events of September 11 took their toll on San Diego’s tourism—as it did on visitor destinations around the nation.
How appropriate then that the Midway’s majestic presence on our waterfront will help us achieve a return to the vibrant visitor industry economy we enjoyed prior to 9/11—much as it helped the United States achieve world peace more than a half century ago!
Tourism is San Diego's third largest industry and vital to the regional economy. Yet, with the exception of Legoland, it has been more than 20 years since a new major visitor attraction opened for business. While San Diego maintains a stellar reputation as a visitor and convention site, we are definitely feeling the heat from destinations such as Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Anaheim, and Orlando.
Meeting planners and vacationers are constantly asking us, "What's New in San Diego?" as more exciting, state-of-the-art attractions are popping up across the country, luring travelers looking for the newest and latest in vacation diversions.
Midway Magic will give us the answer to "What's New in San Diego" and immediately infuse our local economy with significant tourism revenues. Based on a review of similar carrier museums in South Carolina, New York and Texas, Midway Magic is projected to attract more than 600,000 visitors the very first year of operation. It will instantly join the ranks of San Diego's impressive tourist attractions.
It will also become an exciting new option to present to national meeting planners, as well as local party planners, looking for a unique site in which to hold their special events. One of the most oft-repeated requests by meeting planners is whether an off-site event for delegates could be held on an aircraft carrier. Midway Magic, less than a mile from the Convention Center, will enable us to offer these planners a venue unlike any other, helping to seal the deal and keep lucrative convention and meetings business in San Diego.
Midway Magic also promises to become an anchor for the emerging revitalization of the entire downtown bayfront. Visitors will flock to the Embarcadero not only to tour Midway Magic, but also to participate in a wide range of experiences--from a visit to the Maritime Museum and majestic Star of India, to a stroll through Seaport Village, to dinner at one of our many fine waterfront restaurants. With the Midway Magic in its midst, Downtown's bayfront--with all its varied components-- will become a visitor destination in itself.
San Diego's hospitality sector has developed into a $5.1 billion-dollar-a-year industry. And while the visitor industry has grown, so too has the military's presence and importance in our community. In fact, San Diego now ranks as the world's largest military home port.
How fitting, then, that the USS Midway begin her final "tour of duty" in San Diego as a dynamic new museum/visitor attraction which will, at the same time, pay lasting tribute to those who have faithfully served their country over the decades.
Reint Reinders has served on the Midway Museum’s Board of Directors since its inception and is also a member of the museum’s Executive Committee. He also serves as Chairman of the Midway Museum’s Planning Committee.
