What Killed the Fresno Metropolitan Museum?

By Russell Clemings and George Hostetter, The Fresno Bee, Calif.

Mar. 7----Also: Roots of the disaster go deep. And Met board reflects on its key decision.

Tim Marsh remembers when he first realized the Fresno Metropolitan Museum's south wall might collapse if his workers followed the plans and kept cutting holes in it.

"There were a lot of openings. And I was saying, 'There are too many openings for that wall not to be reinforced,' " said Marsh, president of Harris Construction, general contractor for the museum's ill-fated renovation.

"It was like an architect said, 'God, I really like these big windows.' And the structural engineer wasn't there."

Finally, an engineer was consulted and confirmed Marsh's fears. The result, he said, was a million-dollar-plus change order to reinforce the five-story wall with more concrete -- part of almost $16 million in overruns that doomed a Fresno cultural institution.

When the Met shut its doors in January, 14 months after completing a renovation that was supposed to be its rebirth, its leaders blamed unforeseen construction issues and a bad economy that crippled fundraising.

Public records and insider accounts paint a different picture: The Met's trustees -- led by an ambitious executive director and a key ally on the board -- plunged into a multimillion-dollar project with incomplete plans and only cursory study of their 80-year-old building. A fuller study was rejected because of cost.

"It isn't until I'm about 20% into the project that I realize they have missed all kinds of things," Marsh said. "They have not done their due diligence."

Had its plans been thoroughly reviewed by a structural engineer, the museum board might have learned -- before it was too late -- that one of the floors could never have supported the weight of the exhibits planned for it. That led to another million-dollar-plus change order, Marsh said.

Had an expert been hired to investigate the building's asbestos and lead issues, the museum might not have written what amounted to a blank check for their removal. Another million dollars went down the drain there, said Fresno architect William Patnaude, hired to take over the project's management after problems began to appear.

The museum's staff, under Executive Director Kathleen Monaghan, and the board that supervised her, composed mainly of local business leaders, did neither of those things.

"A board that didn't do its job. It happens all the time," said William Lyles, a board president during the museum's early years.

Lyles was off the board but present for a key 2004 meeting at which directors approved the renovation. He said he opposed the decision, but agreed not to publicly criticize it at the time.

"I kept my promise that I wouldn't go out and purposefully undermine what they were trying to do," Lyles said. "I just couldn't bring myself to do that, even though I knew they were wrong."

'Terrible management'

Launched in August 2005, renovation of the Met's home -- the historic former Fresno Bee building -- was seen as the first stage of a project to turn the block bounded by Calaveras, Fulton and Stanislaus streets and Van Ness Avenue into the cultural centerpiece of the central San Joaquin Valley.

It was initially expected to take one year and cost $12.6 million. In the end, it took three years and three months -- and $28 million, including a $15 million loan guaranteed by City Hall on which the museum defaulted.

Those who led the museum during that time talk about the construction problems and cost overruns as if they were unavoidable.

"I think it was a perfect storm," said one longtime board member, Fresno attorney Jim Ganulin.

"The engineers and architects were wrong as to the extent of the problems," said Sam Reeves -- who, with his wife, longtime Met board member Betsy Reeves, were among the museum's biggest donors.

Patnaude, one of the city's most experienced architects, sees it differently. He blames board and staff members who, despite their expertise in business and the arts, had too little relevant experience to oversee the complex renovation.

"I don't think anybody knew what should happen in a big construction project like that," Patnaude said. "It was just terrible management."

Minutes of the board's Sept. 21, 2004, meeting say the renovation was discussed "at length" and note that Lyles voiced concerns but contain few other details. In the end, the vote to proceed was unanimous.

"There were people who were concerned that this was a reach," said Ned Doffoney, former president of Fresno City College, who was among those voting. "But in the final analysis, there was a belief in the city of Fresno" and the museum's importance to its future.

Patnaude said he was hired at Marsh's request when the renovation had stalled, taking over from a San Francisco-based firm. He said he was later let go without explanation before the project was completed, although Met trustee Paul Gibson said Patnaude "served ably" and the board wanted to keep him on.

Regardless of the circumstances, "I was glad to get out of there," the architect said. "I knew there was going to be a big problem."

It wasn't his first experience with the old Bee building.

Three decades ago, Patnaude drew up plans for an expansion and renovation. It would have extended the building south along Van Ness and revamped the interior for an estimated cost of $11 million. The plan languished for decades and came no closer to reality than a scale model in a corner of Patnaude's office conference room.

Then, in December 2004, the museum unveiled a new plan by Los Angeles architect Michael Maltzan. It filled the block with new buildings and airy plazas, plus underground parking and a rooftop amphitheater. The Bee building's renovation was to be the first step in that grand vision, expected to cost more than $100 million.

Making enemies

Patnaude's renovation plan fell by the wayside.

It wasn't the only thing that got thrown out during that era.

With little notice, under Monaghan's direction, what had been the Fresno Metropolitan Museum of Art, History and Science dropped "history" from its name and narrowed its focus to art and science. In the process, it alienated some longtime donors and went into direct competition with the older and more established Fresno Art Museum.

"Kathleen came here with the idea that history didn't make money," said Lyles, who saw history as a key to attracting big agricultural donors.

Monaghan also tried to shake the Met out of what she saw as parochial habits. "Christmas At The Met," a signature event that rewarded donors and attracted thousands of guests, became a scaled-back "Holidays At The Met" during her tenure.

"Not everybody in Fresno is Christian," Monaghan said, noting that the city also has a large Asian population and that the Met board included four Jewish members.

But rather than healing a perceived rift in the community, the changes helped create one, setting different factions of Fresno's business and cultural elite against each other.

"She drove away a lot of supporters," Lyles said.

At one point in the renovation, Patnaude said, the museum destroyed several small galleries that had been named for donors, including Lyles, whose family investment firm has made him one of the wealthiest Fresnans.

"They didn't tell him; they just tore it out," Patnaude said.

"When I get together with him and that thing comes up he can't stop talking. He has sworn he will never give another dime to that museum even if it comes back again."

Lyles confirmed the account.

Getting in trouble

Still, things didn't really start to careen out of control for the Met until the renovation began.

Monaghan said she and the board considered, but rejected, a proposal to thoroughly study the old Bee building before seeking bids on the renovation.

The reason? Money. She said the study might have cost $1 million. And when it was done, the museum would still have faced the same fundamental problem -- its mid-1920s building.

"A $28 million project would've cost $29 million," Monaghan said.

But Marsh, whose company is suing the Met over $1.2 million in unpaid bills, finds it inconceivable that a major renovation of an 80-year-old building would start without a detailed review of how its structure would meet current building codes as well as its intended new use.

"It takes your breath away," he said. "You're going to get in lots of trouble. Which is what they did."

Maltzan, the project architect, said the decision to move forward was made by museum staff and board members, who believed the building had been fully studied in a previous 1980s renovation.

In any event, "those things are the responsibility of the owner, in this case the Met," Maltzan said. "They weren't a part of our contract."

Neither were the old building's hazardous waste challenges, for which Maltzan said his firm's insurance forbids his involvement.

Dealing with asbestos and lead was expected to cost $100,000, maybe less, but wound up being more than $1 million, both Marsh and Patnaude said.

The reason? Marsh said the abatement contractor was allowed to bill for time and materials used, rather than agreeing in advance to a firm price.

"Where's the incentive for cost savings?" he said. "There really isn't any."

Former Fresno Bee Publisher C. Ray Steele Jr. was on the Met's board when the renovation was approved but missed the vote because of a scheduling conflict. He said he would have voted no.

Steele said he remembers asking questions about lead residues in the old building, where the toxic metal had been used for decades of newspaper printing, but "there just weren't a lot of answers." In general, he said he believed the museum moved forward with too little money in the bank and too much haste.

"Personally I think they just went ahead because some people wanted to get the project going," he said.

Pinning the blame

Many museum insiders point to the recession as a final blow.

Betsy Reeves said the economy worsened a shortage of big donors, including corporations. For example, Gottschalks was a steady contributor until it went bankrupt early last year.

"There just wasn't a lot of significant local support," she said.

Lyles has a different perspective.

"It did not fail because of the economy today," he said. "It was dead long before that happened. It was dead because they did things they had no business doing, without money to pay for it."

Lyles doesn't mince words when asked what caused all the problems at the Met. He blames Monaghan.

"Kathleen ran the show, and she ran it into the ground," he said. "I said many times: Kathleen is going to do what she wants to do, declare victory and leave town, and leave it in a shambles."

Monaghan said she was hired in fall 1999 to do exactly what she did -- bring order from chaos, sharpen the Met's focus, energize its exhibits and turn the museum into a game-changer for Fresno's long-beleaguered downtown. Previously director of The Hyde Collection Art Museum in Glens Falls, N.Y., Monaghan took over a museum that had lost money for the previous two years.

"The trustees believed in a miracle," Monaghan said. "They believed in the vision, and they thought I could manage it."

Monaghan forged a close working relationship with Betsy Reeves. That gave her clout.

"Betsy and Kathleen had a clear vision and they articulated that vision to the board," Doffoney said.

Monaghan also said a major -- but unnamed -- donor was in favor of the project.

Minutes of the fateful meeting in September 2004 note that "Ms. Monaghan reminded the Trustees that the anonymous donor supports the renovation of the Bee Building. The Trustees understood that this was a defining moment in the Museum's future."

Monaghan makes no apologies for pushing the renovation.

"I told the board when I came that I would never be a custodial director," Monaghan said. "I said, 'If you want somebody who opens the door every day and plans the party, that's not me.' "

Ed Kashian, a Fresno developer and major Met contributor, remembers a critical early meeting that included Monaghan, key board members and some of the museum's major donors. At issue: whether the museum should stay downtown, at the old Bee building, or follow the rest of Fresno by moving north.

"The existing facility did not work well for the museum," said Kashian, who has been critical of how the board handled the eventual renovation. "Our choices were to rebuild somewhere else -- some wondered if we should go to the suburbs -- or rebuild the facility on Van Ness."

In the end, the board and key donors were of one mind, Kashian said: "The right thing to do was to stay downtown and rebuild that building."

It proved a fateful decision, the beginning of the end for the Met.

Stewart Randall, the museum's current board president and part of a family that supported The Met from its start, compared the ill-fated renovation to an operation performed by a heart surgeon who doesn't realize the scale of the patient's illness until opening his chest.

"By that time, it's too late to say 'never mind,' " Randall said. "We had to go forward."

But Marsh uses a different analogy -- renovation of an old house. Homeowners start with a firm budget and what seems like a reasonable contingency reserve. Then they start adding luxuries -- granite countertops, high-end fixtures and windows.

And they can get expensive shocks along the way if they haven't done much investigation before starting work.

"You can't see everything," he said. "I'm going to open up a wall and something's going to be a disaster."

The Met, he said, seemed to take it on faith that everything would somehow work out despite the inevitable surprises.

"I don't believe they were evil or malicious," he said. "They just weren't builders. ... They didn't analyze the building for what it was. And they got caught up with wanting to make this a real statement."

The reporters can be reached at rclemings@fresnobee.com, ghostetter@fresnobee.com or (559) 441-6330.

-----

To see more of The Fresno Bee, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.fresnobee.com

Copyright (c) 2010, The Fresno Bee, Calif.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.

Tokyo:4744, NYSE:GOT,

A service of YellowBrix, Inc.