As Jennifer Herring tells it, she decided to lead the Maritime Aquarium after gazing into the depths of a sea turtle”™s eye on a visit there nearly four years ago.
Now she is looking you in the eye and encouraging children, teachers, and yes ”“ businesspeople ”“ to visit again.
As the Norwalk institution prepares to mark its 20th anniversary, it has $5 million in new backing from one of its oldest supporters. Just as importantly, Herring has a blueprint in hand from a renowned aquarium designer she thinks will reverse a recent ebb tide at the institution in which attendance has dropped in three of the past four years.
For the fiscal year ending in June 2006, Maritime Aquarium totaled $9.5 million, drawing 507,000 visitors that year and 9,750 members. The following year, visitors dropped below 500,000 for only the third time in the past 11 years.
The Maritime Aquarium”™s history is instructive both on the merits and difficulties of creating a major tourist attraction in Fairfield County, situated between the twin tourism meccas of New York City and eastern Connecticut where the Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun casinos are located.
The Maritime Aquarium lacks the star power of Mystic Aquarium”™s beluga whales, sea lions and Institute for Exploration, led by Titanic wreck explorer Robert Ballard. Instead, the institution focuses on the habitat of Long Island Sound.
“This is not a destination attraction,” Herring said. “This is a regional destination ”¦ We are still kind of a ”˜stealth”™ aquarium.”
Herring believes the institution can grab the spotlight once more ”“ and she knows a thing or two about spotlights. An opera singer until age 30, Herring then transitioned to administration at New York City Opera before joining the New York Public Library, where she executed a $300 million fundraising campaign.
Making the leap to the Wildlife Conservation Society, she landed a $100 million gift for WCS, which runs several attractions in the Tri-State region including the Bronx Zoo and the New York Aquarium.
Maritime Aquarium is still basking in a $5 million gift from longtime supporter William Ziegler, one of a key group of people who believed a major tourist attraction could be established in Fairfield County. The Maritime Aquarium owes its existence to his early efforts and that of several individuals, including Chris Roosevelt, the aquarium”™s founding president who is a partner at Roosevelt & Benowich L.L.C., which has offices in New York City and White Plains, N.Y.
Perhaps most importantly, the founders were able to win the support of then Norwalk Mayor William A. Collins. With the National Aquarium in Baltimore leading the redevelopment of the inner city, Norwalk officials agreed to put up $30 million in bonds to support the redevelopment of an old mill property into an aquarium, maritime museum and IMAX theater.
“That was such a forward-looking investment on (putting) that amount of money on such a gamble,” Herring said. “And in the beginning it was really rough.”
Initial attendance fell more than 10 percent short of expectations, forcing the city to spend taxpayer money to service the debt or risk losing the crown jewel of its South Norwalk redevelopment efforts.
With extinction the worst-case scenario, the aquarium responded by erecting a tent for revolving exhibits, and quickly latched onto robotic dinosaur exhibits as a proven draw. More recently, the aquarium has added a ride exhibit that Herring credits with increasing per capita revenue 28 percent the past three years.
At the same time, the institution has been jettisoning exhibits dragging on its financial health ”“ including scuttling last summer a wooden boatbuilding workshop, the last major surviving remnant of the original maritime museum.
At the same time, it was not ignoring the aquatic life, adding otters, a touch tank for rays, and yes ”“ the sea turtles that mesmerized Herring.
In the wing that once housed the maritime museum, the aquarium now offers visitors the opportunity to query aquarists as they breed seahorses, grow coral and undertake conservation projects.
This week, the aquarium is to open an exhibit on ancient “sea monsters,” and recently added a frog exhibit with support from UBS AG, which, with more than 4,000 employees in Stamford. is the third-largest company in Fairfield County.
The aquarium has more grandiose plans in store ”“ New York City attraction architect Thinc Design last year completed a redesign blueprint for the aquarium intended to bring visitors in closer contact with resident creatures, such as a see-through slide through a large otter tank and an expanded tank that allows visitors to watch sharks gliding overhead.
To support that vision, Herring plans to reach out more aggressively to local businesses to round up financial support for the expansion.
“I would like (business leaders) to embrace the Maritime Aquarium as a regional asset,” Herring said. “Its not just for Norwalk ”“ this is an institution that has huge importance for the region.”
