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.