TITLE
Recommendation to authorize City Manager to execute an Implementation Agreement with the Aquarium of the Pacific, a California nonprofit public benefit corporation, to facilitate privately-funded expansion efforts and provide for a term extension to 55 years through 2060. (District 2)
DISCUSSION
In January 2005, the AoP unveiled its Campus Master Plan (CMP) which focused on expanding capacity to 2.2 million visitors and growing average annual attendance to 1.7 - 1.8 million per year. The CMP identified certain physical expansions and program enhancements to achieve these goals. AoP developed assumptions and projections which revealed that, without expansion, AoP's financial condition would deteriorate, possibly increasing the level of the City's participation in debt service payments. Two major expansion projects were identified and modeled to determine their prospective impact on attendance and revenues. Both proposed expansion projects, Pacific Visions and Channel Islands Experience, are designed to provide the additional capacity and generate the additional attendance needed to achieve the goal of long-term financial stability. Any such expansion is to be funded from sources other than City-issued bonds.
In order to launch their capital campaign for the first expansion, currently scheduled to open in 201 1, AoP approached the City and requested lease modifications, which would serve to strengthen AoP's ability to secure donations. These requests included, among other things, a fixed lease-payment, a predicable parking revenue income stream, a predicable operations and maintenance budget and additional program reinvestment
funds to be used to refresh and enhance exhibits and related programming.
City staff and AoP staff and Board representatives have been meeting diligently over the past few months to better understand, analyze, verify and support the basis, findings and recommendations of the CMP. To that end, the City Manager hired an independent ...
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