Museum Matters: The best laid plans … and flooring – Traverse City Record Eagle

In the world of construction timelines, the best laid plans can be brought to a screeching halt by unforeseen problems. Such was the case this week.

I had written and submitted this column beginning as follows: My last column was entitled Closed, but not idle. This one can be entitled Pushing to re-open amongst a beehive of construction activity.

As I write this, tarps cover the visitor favorites for photos the musk ox and polar bear as workmen climb towering scaffolding and ride around on scissorlifts cutting holes in the ceiling of the Zimmerman Court to replace heating and cooling units and resurface the walls.

The museum exhibition galleries are being repainted and new flooring is about to be installed, as it will be in the museum court.

The museum store has been carpeted and display units are being installed while our store manager, Terry Tarnow, admires the new behind-the-scenes spaces she will have for office and inventory storage. The public may not see these areas, but to Terry, this is one of the most important changes to take place in this whole construction effort.

Currently there is a wall at the entrance to the Discovery Gallery area that has been built to section off the existing museum from what will be the newly expanded Inuit Gallery beyond. The other day that wall came down for most of the day and was rebuilt in the latter part of the day. But for a few hours we had a glimpse of the impact the new expansion will have on the visitor experience when coming to the new Dennos.

When I first saw the wall gone and the grand space beyond it was a startling experience. The way the space opens up with a much larger wall of glass looking south out to the Meadmore sculpture is amazing. It will be some time yet before this wall is gone to enable the public to have the same experience my staff and I had that day, but when they do, I believe they will find it breathtaking.

All of this intense activity is of course happening for a very good reason. We want to get the current Dennos open again and our galleries back in operation for the community and the many visitors coming to the region this summer.

Then, as I noted at the beginning of this column, the unforeseen happened and with it the ending of my original column had to change.

An examination of the gallery flooring that had been delivered and was beginning to be installed revealed that it didn't match the product sample provided for decision-making. We are now faced with a dilemma continue to install a product that does not meet the desired look or delay and get a product that does.

I have been told that it is not uncommon to have this variation between samples and delivered product. But unless you correct the problem now, you will have to live with unsatisfactory results for decades to come.

So now we wait for the solution. Our hopes of getting our galleries installed and opened with new exhibitions by the end of the month is facing a delay.

As of this writing, we do not know how long that will be.

As always you can follow the progress on our website dennosmuseum.org or on Facebook.

Gene Jenneman is the executive director of the Dennos Museum Center. He can be reached at ejenneman@nmc.edu.

Read more here:
Museum Matters: The best laid plans ... and flooring - Traverse City Record Eagle