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  • 1.  Does your Museum lease their land and/or buildings?

    Posted 08-16-2018 06:00 PM
    Hello all,

    A potential legacy donor recently raised a concern that our museum does not own our land. We currently lease the land from the City for $1 per year. We do not receive any other funding from the city, operating as an independent nonprofit. I know that this is a pretty common practice, but would love some concrete research. Can anyone let me know where I may find this research? If research does not exist on this, maybe you can share a highlight of your museum and what your lease entails (I don't need the agreement, but maybe how long your lease is and any potential renewals of the lease?)

    Thanks in advance!

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    Frances Winfrey
    Development Manager
    Metal Museum
    Memphis, TN
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    AAM Annual Meeting & MuseumExpo, Baltimore, May 16-19, 2024, click to learn more


  • 2.  RE: Does your Museum lease their land and/or buildings?

    Posted 08-17-2018 07:25 AM
    This is a very common practice, and, in my earlier experience, the standard was often very long leases (100 or 50) years.  These days, with our society changing so fast, shorter leases make more sense and are more common.

    Make sure the lease includes who owns improvements and who's responsible for them.  If your structures are historic... who applies for restoration/conservation grants?  In the event of a natural disaster, whose insurance covers damage?

    When it's time to re-negotiate the lease, don't let the city talk you into taking over ownership...it's costly.  Good luck.

    Vivian F. Zoë, Director
    Slater Memorial Museum
    108 Crescent Street, Norwich CT 06360
    860-425-5560 vox
    860-885-0379 fax

    "Inspiration is for amateurs - the rest of us just show up and get to work," Chuck Close, 2003


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  • 3.  RE: Does your Museum lease their land and/or buildings?

    Posted 08-17-2018 08:27 AM

    We own our building but not our land – we have a lease with the Maryland State Dept. of Natural Resources. But instead of talking about it as a lease, we talk about it as a partnership. The lease is long term, and has "in perpetuity" renewal language in it so we are not in any danger of losing the building. The pubic generally assumes we own the land – it just doesn't occur to them that we don't – but when they find out they immediately understand the partnership idea, and see the lease as an agreement between friends. This language alleviates any concerns the public might have about DNR taking the land back. This relationship does come with restrictions, the main one being that we cannot change the footprint of the existing building so we are limited in our ability to expand the facility should we want to.

     

    Karen E. Stone

    Museum Division Manager

    St. Mary's County MD

    301-769-3235

    karen.stone@stmarysmd.com

     




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  • 4.  RE: Does your Museum lease their land and/or buildings?

    Posted 08-17-2018 09:44 AM
    ​You might try contacting  the Museum of the Confederacy and the National Park Service in Richmond, both of which operagte museums on land thagt once housedx the Civil War Tredegar Iron Works.  This land remians in the hands of the company that grew from the original family ownership of the site, where it remains.  You should check on the agreedments allowing the use of the company owned site fior museum (s) purposes.

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    Bruce Bazelon
    Harrisburg PA
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  • 5.  RE: Does your Museum lease their land and/or buildings?

    Posted 08-17-2018 10:33 AM
    We have a complex situation.  Our museum sits on land leased from the city in 1979 for 99 years, with a renewable clause.  Our land based facility is a state building, that was built with private and grant funds.  We are an unfunded state agency and so the construction of the building was contracted out by the state and voila, the state owns a new building.  Makes strategic planning, including building expansion, very complicated.  So I can see how these kinds of situations could concern potential major donors.

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    David Beard
    Executive Director
    USS KIDD Veterans Memorial Museum
    Baton Rouge LA
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  • 6.  RE: Does your Museum lease their land and/or buildings?

    Posted 08-17-2018 02:47 PM
    ​We lease a portion of our museum complex from our City/County--a small (2,000 sf) jail building and the land on which it sits.  In 1976, we added a wing to the jail, paid for by the museum, but built on City land.  The museum owns all the rest of the land and buildings around it (a full City block).  It is a 99 year lease for $1/year.  Because of the nature of the building, and what surrounds it, and efforts to maintain good relationships with the City/County, we believe we will continue to be able to lease the property in this manner.

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    [Shan] Rankin
    Executive Director
    Museum of South Texas History
    Edinburg TX
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  • 7.  RE: Does your Museum lease their land and/or buildings?

    Posted 08-17-2018 05:26 PM

    We have a similar situation.  Our garden is owned by the City of Portland. We have a license agreement (not a lease) to operate it on their behalf. We have raised and invested large sums of money in physical improvements to the site over 35 years but are not able to book the items as assets.  The city also passes through money to our non-profit to assist in paying operating expenses.

     

    Conceivably the city could decide to end its agreement with us and find some other entity to operate the Garden. However, the City is not able to change the function of the Garden from being a 'public botanical garden and  museum' as the original owners stipulated that in their will.  We have believed that it is unlikely the city would take such an action in that the disruption could have disastrous consequences on the operation, public trust and perception, lost financial support from donors and philanthropic organizations and so on.  

     

    Finding an alternative mechanism has not seemed possible.

     

    David Porter

    Executive Director

    6704 SE 122nd Ave.

    Portland, OR  97236

    503.823.1673

    www.leachgarden.org

    Alex 12-14 logo-signtr

     

     

     

     

     




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