In
the 1980s and early 1990s,
COSI Columbus was the
pride of Ohio. Students,
educators and families
traveled to the capital
city to take part in
hands-on exhibits and
learn about the newest
developments in science
and technology. Visitors
flocked to the new areas
as much as the favorite
standbys: optical illusion
exhibits, the chick room,
rat basketball and the
electric orb that made
kids’ hair stand
on end.
But in 1999, the public
perception of COSI changed
when it moved a couple
of miles west on Broad
Street. Suddenly, Central
Ohioans were mourning
the loss of the “old” COSI.
They weren’t just
talking about the change
in location, but also
about the changed experience.
To many, COSI just didn’t
feel like COSI anymore.
The last nine years have
been a roller coaster
ride for the Center of
Science and Industry,
marked by two blockbuster
exhibits (Titanic and “Star
Wars”), a financial
crisis capped by a failed
levy attempt and the
departure of its president.
But under the guidance
of David Chesebrough,
attendance and revenue
are up—as are corporate
and community support.
However, even as COSI
unveils what’s
sure to be its third
blockbuster—CSI:
The Experience—there’s
still work to be done.
COSI’s move from
its longtime 150,000-square-foot
home at 280 E. Broad
St. was necessitated
by growth. “Back
in the early ’90s,
COSI had a peak attendance
of somewhere around 730,000,” says
Kathy Sullivan, CO-SI’s
president and CEO from
1996 to 2006. “More
and more key days—the
days that people wanted
to go to COSI—were
more and more crowded
and less and less comfortable. … The
crowding itself was becoming
a disincentive and a
detriment to the appeal
of the place.”
And so COSI leaders began
looking for a bigger
building. They found
it at the former Central
High School at 333 W.
Broad St. in Franklinton.
When COSI relocated to
the 320,000-square-foot
contemporary space overlooking
the Scioto River, it
didn’t take long
for a financial headache
to set in. By the end
of the first year, the
science center’s
annual budget had more
than doubled to $18.3
million due to higher
overhead costs.
COSI increased ticket
prices, but that caused
attendance and membership
to drop. In fiscal 2003,
attendance bottomed out
at 458,471, a 13 percent
decline from the previous
year. But that wasn’t
the worst part. Visitors
to the science center—whose
guest service was once
compared to that of Disney—complained
that the building’s
large size diminished
the energy of the place;
what once was vibrant
and nearly chaotic now
seemed cold and empty.
To staunch the bleeding,
in March 2004 COSI turned
to Franklin County voters,
seeking a 0.5-mill property
tax levy that would have
generated $12.4 million
a year. Despite the carrot
of free admission for
county residents, the
issue failed—badly.
COSI subsequently laid
off more than 60 employees
and cut its budget almost
37 percent.
“We needed to resize,” Sullivan
says. “We needed
to separate the notion
of COSI the institution
from the building that
we were currently in,
and size our operations
to the realistic fiscal
capacity that we had.”
With operations stabilized,
COSI brought in two national
exhibits—Titanic
and “Star Wars”—that
proved to be the saving
grace. Attendance rebounded
to more than 487,700
in fiscal 2006. “It
was really, really helpful,” Sullivan
says. “The timing
couldn’t have been
better to get two such
well-done, high-substance,
high-quality and popular
imagination exhibits
back to back.”
Then, in 2005, Sullivan,
a former astronaut and
the first American woman
to walk in space, announced
she would step down.
After a national search,
David Chesebrough, then
president and CEO of
New York’s Buffalo
Museum of Science, agreed
to lead COSI starting
in April 2006.
It was a tough decision
for Chesebrough, who
agreed to become COSI’s
new president and CEO
on one condition: The
community had to step
up its financial support.
“Even though COSI
has had some problems
and lost the levy, the
community still deeply
cares for COSI,” he
says. “It’s
a big job, but … I’ve
gotten as best as I can,
verbal eyeball-to-eyeball
commitments from community
leaders that they will
be there to work with
us because it’s
their COSI. And if I
come in and fail and
walk away, it’s
still their problem.
But, I had no intention
of failing.”
Back to Basics
COSI’s roots go
back to the late 1950s
when Sandy Hallock II,
an advertising account
executive, proposed a
Columbus Museum of Science
and Industry, based on
a similar institution
he had visited in Chicago.
The plan became a reality,
and the old Memorial
Hall, a historic performing
arts space, was remodeled;
COSI opened on Easter
Sunday in 1964.
The center quickly grew
both in exhibits and
in reputation. By 1987,
when Cleveland native
Chesebrough started working
at what is now the Carnegie
Science Center in Pittsburgh,
COSI was one of the premier
facilities in the country. “They
were like the New York
Yankees of the science
center field,” he
says. “They were
just a dominant force.
Where most science centers
were growing out of natural
history museums or were
startups and were finding
out, ‘OK, we’ve
changed; who are we?’ COSI
knew who it was, what
it was about, and did
it with swagger.”
COSI was so well-respected
that it was tapped to
develop COSI Toledo,
which opened in 1997.
(The COSIs were intertwined
until April 2006; COSI
Toledo was unable to
stay afloat and closed
at the end of 2007.)
But in 1999, COSI experienced
an identity crisis. Its
new $125 million facility
was designed by renowned
Japanese architect Arata
Isozaki and, though spacious,
it was too spacious for
COSI’s needs.
“The old COSI—not
by design—but because
they had to squeeze everything
in between the sidewalk
and the front of the
building, had all this
energy right in your
face because it was a
cramped facility,” Chesebrough
says. “You can’t
go [from] one building
into a significantly
different building, and
say, ‘I’m
going to replicate the
building.’ But
you can replicate the
feeling of the experience.”
Chesebrough has worked
to make the building
feel smaller, cutting
visitor hours to focus
on when students are
out of school (so more
people are there at the
same time and the place
feels busier) and adding
12 moveable exhibits
in the hallways. In the
atrium, a new Challenge
Center lets families
see who can build the
tallest object with paper
or how far they can launch
a ball. So far, the efforts
seem to have paid off:
Attendance for fiscal
2007 surpassed 550,000,
while revenue rose 6.6
percent to $13.3 million.
There also is an effort
to bring back old COSI
favorites. Last year,
more than $30,000 was
raised to move the Science
Spectrum Sculpture—a
tree of mirrors that
reflects light—from
the rarely-seen outdoor
Big Science Park to a
prominent spot at the
visitors’ entrance.
“We needed to bring
out our iconic pieces,” Chesebrough
says. “This is
the COSI that people
have fond memories of.”
New Funding Model
When Sullivan left, it
was clear that COSI needed
a long-term funding plan.
Chesebrough’s background
was a perfect fit: A
science teacher for 20-plus
years, he earned a master’s
degree in science education
from the University of
Pittsburgh and a doctorate
in museum leadership
from Duquesne University,
where he focused on museum
and community partnerships.
Chesebrough had been
teaching near Pittsburgh
when he left the classroom
in 1987 to help lead
the Buhl Planetarium
(which later morphed
into the Carnegie Science
Center) to help it transition
into its new building
and identity. He followed
that up with five-year
stints at the Roberson
Museum & Science
Center in Binghamton,
N.Y., and the Buffalo
Museum of Science.
During his tenure at
both New York institutions,
Chesebrough was forced
to trim staff and annual
budgets—an experience
he wasn’t keen
on repeating when COSI
came calling. “After
11 years of working turnarounds,
I wasn’t sure how
much energy I had left
in me,” he says. “I
told them, ‘I have
to know that this is
a community project.
This can’t be a
David Chesebrough project.’ ”
When Chesebrough arrived
at COSI, public funding
made up 0.8 percent of
total funding. “The
national average for
a museum our size is
about 35 percent, so
you see the huge disparity,” he
says.
After much discussion
between Chesebrough,
COSI’s board of
trustees and the community,
a $6 million funding
plan was established
for both 2007 and 2008.
The city and county each
agreed to contribute
$2 million, with corporate
sponsors—including
Limited Brands and Battelle—donating
the other $2 million. “The
real intent was to start
to get a better balance
of financial resources,” says
Carl Kohrt, chairman
of COSI’s board
and president and CEO
of Battelle. “I
think the private-public
partnership is just a
tool for doing that,
and it’s one that
we hope in this form,
or another form, will
be sustained.”
The city and county funds
don’t come without
a catch: required workforce
development and outreach
efforts to low-income
residents. To meet those
goals, a new outreach
coordinator takes exhibits
and activities out to
community and child-care
centers, among other
places.
The financial model is
gaining industry attention,
but there’s still
more to do, experts say.
Public funding now accounts
for 13.7 percent of COSI’s
operating budget, but
that’s still far
behind the national average. “David
is doing a very good
job of helping COSI reassess
where it is and how it
can be vital and relevant
in its own community
in the next few years,” says
Bonnie VanDorn, executive
director of the Association
of Science-Technology
Centers, an international
trade association that
will hold its 2012 annual
conference at COSI. “I
see this as the first
step in a longer-term
strategy. … It’s
not something that’s
done in two years.”
Blockbuster Exhibits
The Titanic exhibit in
2005 and “Star
Wars” in summer
2006 gave COSI the financial
boost it needed: Titanic
brought in 226,036 guests—nearly
half of that year’s
attendance—and “Star
Wars” netted 167,828. “They
were both fabulous spark
plugs for real fresh
energy,” says Sullivan. “The
attendance boosts and
the revenue that came
with that were delightful;
they helped us replenish
cash reserves, and they
built up a good cushion
for business.”
Blockbuster exhibits
can be risky, though. “The
issue with these blockbusters
is that you have a lot
of money out there, and
that expense is guaranteed,
but the income’s
not,” Chesebrough
says. “You can
lose your shirt on those
things, too.”
That risk is allayed
somewhat by COSI’s
status as a founding
member of the Science
Museum Exhibit Collaborative
(SMEC), a partnership
of seven U.S. facilities
that rotates in-house
exhibits for free as
opposed to the typical
rental fee of $250,000
a month. “Star
Wars” was an SMEC
exhibit.
In late May, COSI launched
another SMEC exhibit,
CSI: The Experience.
Based on the hit television
series “CSI: Crime
Scene Investigation,” the
exhibit includes crime
scenes, forensics labs
and an autopsy room.
While the exhibit rental
is free, it will cost
COSI $300,000 to install
and operate.
CSI is expected to bring
in 150,000 visitors during
a three-month run. “We
built into the budget
less than Star Wars,” Chesebrough
says. “It takes
a bit longer to go through
the exhibit, and not
as many people can go
through.”
Part of the reason blockbuster
exhibits are so successful
is that they capitalize
on pop culture interests.
In fact, COSI plans to
host one every summer.
Next up is Lost Egypt,
Ancient Secrets, Modern
Science, a three-month
SMEC exhibit that COSI
is creating. A team of
employees already has
traveled to Egypt to
learn first-hand about
the science of archeology.
WOSU went along to videotape
interviews with scientists,
archeologists and researchers
that will be used in
the exhibit, which includes
loaned artifacts.
“It’s consistent
with who we are now,” Chesebrough
says. “It’s
engaging, but it’s
using real science and
technology. … So
again, we take the power
of real people, real
science and take a topic
that has popular culture
around it: Egypt.”
Blockbusters also have
another benefit: a chance
to interest people in
the centers other exhibits.
Already this year, COSI
hosted Goosebumps: the
Science of Fear; this
fall, Sesame Street:
the Body will give preschoolers
hands-on lessons about
the human body.
Community Connections
Chesebrough’s colleagues
say one of his biggest
strengths is that he’s
a community partner. “David
is outstanding,” says
Ted Ford, president and
CEO of TechColumbus. “He’s
a force of nature; he’s
just a big ball of enthusiasm
and energy that’s
constantly moving the
needle. And we really
like working with him;
he’s very collaborative.”
COSI’s new leader
has not only broadened
the center’s focus
from younger children
to K-12, but he also
has cultivated relationships
that Sullivan started
with Battelle, OSU and
WOSU. Chesebrough would
like to see other organizations
contribute their expertise
to give a richer—and
less expensive—educational
experience to visitors.
With the 2006 opening
of WOSU@ COSI, COSI became
the first science center
to host a state-of-the-art
broadcast media center.
WOSU leases 12,000 square
feet for $200,000 a year.
The partnership gives
WOSU more room than it
had at the Fawcett Center
on campus, and gives
COSI visitors a peek
at how radio and TV operations
work.
“COSI is really
going beyond a children’s
experience to really
being a vital part of
the community,” says
Tom Rieland, general
manager of WOSU Public
Media. “I’ve
been very excited at
what David’s brought
to COSI. He’s been
just a great collaborator. … And
we’re brainstorming
just way outside of the
box about all kinds of
possibilities about how
we both can take advantage
of this facility and
this relationship.”
This fall, COSI is partnering
with TechColumbus, Battelle
and OSU on a new 1,500-square-foot
Technology & Innovation
exhibit that will showcase
local inventions. “Young
companies, particularly
tech companies, need
as much visibility as
they can get, basically
just to get their name
out there and have people
understand who they are,” says
Ford. “So as people
come through, particularly
young people, they can
get a sense of what the
heritage is here and
what some of the possibilities
are.”
Robert McGrath, Ohio
State’s senior
vice president for research,
says COSI is a natural
partner. “They
have a mission of bringing
science and science education
through that K-12 population,
and that’s exactly
what we here at the university
would love to see,” he
says. “We’d
love to stimulate the
excitement and vitality
of basic science and
technology within our
young people because
that helps them in their
training of math and
science, which then makes
them much stronger students
in college. … Whether
they go into a science
field or not, it’s
just a good strong base
to build upon.”
COSI also makes its building
available for private
and community events.
There are 25 rooms available
to rent for everything
from high school proms
and wedding receptions
to business conferences
and awards
ceremonies. Though the
rental business has ebbed
and flowed in recent
years, it’s up
nearly 13 percent from
fiscal 2000 to nearly
$380,000 in 2007.
“COSI differs greatly
in that it has as an
asset a wonderful, huge,
beautiful building that
is more than it needs
to fulfill its own programming,” says
the Association of Science-Technology
Centers’ VanDorn. “So
bringing in other partners
to help use and pay for
the cost of that facility,
and at the same time
to enhance the programming
of the community, is
a wonderful model, a
win-win for everyone.”
In May, COSI announced
it will receive $1.5
million from the Ohio
Cultural Facilities Commission
and the state capital
budget
to help fund building
improvements, such as
energy efficiency, technological
upgrades and a new outdoor
sign. Later in the month,
the science center was
approved for $272,293
in operating support
from the Greater Columbus
Arts Council.
COSI may be bouncing
back, but it’s
not in the clear just
yet. “Things have
stabilized, and I think
they have rebounded,” says
Mike Reese, chief of
staff to Columbus Mayor
Michael Coleman. “Now,
the question for all
of us is to take it to
the next level, and I
think under David’s
leadership, we’re
well-positioned. But
we need to—obviously—collectively
stay well-focused and
continue to challenge
ourselves to provide
a great experience for
families.”
Angela
Palmer is a staff writer
for Columbus C.E.O. |