Return to Nicholas Johnson's Coralville Rain Forest Site
 

So far, the project has received commitments of $10 million from project founder Ted Townsend, $50 million from a Federal Department of Energy Grant, $20 million from Coralville in land and infrastructure and $10 million from an energy deal. Nearly four years after being pitched for Coralville, $90 million still is needed.

Gill said he was frustrated that, so far, Townsend is the only private investor.

"The telltale thing is if this is such a great project -- and I don't want to knock the project -- why don't we have other people jumping on besides Townsend?" Gill said.

David Oman, chief administrator of the project, said project officials are working on a number of fronts with potential investors, involving many follow-up meetings."

"In January, project chief administrator David Oman talked about a $50 million kick-start from Congress in January as providing a momentum surge, saying organizers would "leverage this, stand on this, show the reality of the project." Oman and Co. have yet to secure any additional financial commitment on the fund-raising front."

So the private sector has proved to be a bit harder to hit up for funds than the federal government? I'm not exactly surprised. In general private donors are interested in actually making money.

"'It may be quiet to you; it hasn't been quiet to us,' Oman said. 'It's been extraordinarily busy ... the most engaged time that we've had to date.'
Oman was in New York last week and has four more visits with potential donors scheduled this month, and another in August. The meetings are second, third and fourth follow-ups, he said."

Well, so long as you're keeping busy. . .

Nice rhetoric, by the way "the most engaged time we've had to date." Makes it sound like you're really romancing those donors.

"With planning well under way, Oman said the next six months are 'critical' for bringing together project components from financing to design.

'Without question, you have to have clarity on almost all the financing by the end of this year to unfold the timetable that I talked about for next year,' Oman said. 'In a design-build scenario, you don't have to have everything, every detail, designed when you start work, but you certainly have to have your scope, your budget and a pretty good idea of what you're going to build.'"

To distill this down: We may not have the money we need, but we're going to close our eyes and spend it anyway. And those pesky cost details? Don't bother with those. As long as we have a tentative budget based on our non-existent donations, and a pretty good idea what we want to build, we'll just skate. Trust us.

Hmm. So what is he saying now? In today's article, he appears to be doing some big-time backpedaling:
 

"'You work with people over time,' Oman said. 'You build relationships and trust. That's what we're doing.'

Oman said that because the project has to work on the terms and timetables of potential investors, he wouldn't hold the project to a 60-day deadline.

'I'm not going to play the numbers game,' he said. 'We have a core team of directors from the board, staff and volunteers who are working long hours every day on this project.'"

So here it is, less than a month an a half before the end of the year, and he hasn't got any 'clarity on financing' other than the fact that there isn't any. So, based on his earlier quote, we should be a tad concerned about the timeline here, no? Yet he waves all that aside because he's not wanting to play a "numbers game" when there's all those relationships and trust to be built.

Guess what, Mr. Oman? Those "numbers" that you're talking about? $90 million of it comes directly or indirectly from our tax dollars. Don't you dare try to brush us off with platitudes. As I said earlier:

If these politicians and developers wanted to build their Fake Rainforest in Coralville with private funds, I wouldn’t have any problem with it (other than wondering if the building be reusable if it goes belly-up like the laser center). But to use $90 million of government money is more than irresponsible. It’s offensive and embarrassing.

You have offered us nothing but smoke and mirrors from the start. Remember this quote from a Press-Citizen editorial in March?

"In all fairness, we concede that project leaders probably can't answer all of the questions. Organizations certainly must maintain a modicum of privacy when negotiating, and we respect that. In other instances, IEEP board members already have said they honestly don't have an answer because the project isn't at a point where the issue must be addressed. In a few cases, board members have attempted to provide answers, but because of the project's current stage, even they admit responses are nebulous."

"Flipping the design, selecting plant life to go inside and crisscrossing the nation in search of the all-important private dollar have consumed the past several months for organizers of a proposed Coralville rain forest and education project.'While the steps have been deliberate, they've been in the right direction," architect Peter Sollogub said. "Construction, in some respects, has begun.'"

Shopping for plants, turning the blueprints upside down and sucking up to potential donors constitutes construction? This could be cheaper than I thought. Why don't we just keep shopping for a few more months and then decide that construction has, in some respects, finished? We could then spend a few more months rearranging the building's mock-ups and decide that visitors, in some respects, have already been flocking to the rainforest in droves. We could declare the entire project a success without ever actually breaking ground.

If you build it, they will come? I'm as big a WP Kinsella fan as the next person, but in this case they have no facts to back up that claim.

1) The “ripple effect” on jobs has now grown. According to the Iowa Environmental/Education page on the Iowa Child website the project was going to create "400 permanent jobs with ripple effect of 2,000 jobs in eastern Iowa." However, the new "news release" here now supports the 2900 "ripple effect" job figure, with "wages exceeding $42.6 million." It puts construction jobs at 500, but gives no indication of the total permanent jobs on which this "ripple effect" is based. Taking the prior figure of 400 permanent jobs would mean they believe the ripple effect would have a multiplier of a little over 7. I'm no economist, but that seems high to me. The Iowa Porkforest website has more on this issue. I also ran a google search on the term "employment multipliers." I get websites like this one with enough math to make your head swim, but if you look at the figures they range between 1.5 and 3.5, with multipliers of about 2 being most common. Come on, guys, seven??

2) The new study on which these people are basing their figures uses "a conservative mid-range attendance scenario of 1.3 million visitors during a stabilized year of operation." That's 3,550+ visitors per day if it were open 365 days per year, down from their prior, apparently not-so-conservative estimate of 1.5 million visitors per year, or 4100 per day. Of course, they still presume that opening year attendance will reach the 1.5 million mark.

Okay, reality check time. The non-profit Denver aquarium cost $93 million to build and opened in 1999. It attracted 1 million visitors during its first year of operation. In Denver, a freaking tourist trap. It went downhill from there, and is now belly-up. What about other rainforests? We keep hearing about the one in Cornwall, England that averages 1.8 million per year, with a local population of 500,000. How about the one in New York which only averages 576,444? Or the fact that the entire Omaha zoo only gets about 1.35 million? Their adjunct rainforest keeps no separate figures. But when the director was asked whether the rainforest itself is self-sustaining, he stifled a laugh and said: "These are very energy- and manpower-intense operations," he said, adding that annual expenses easily can rise to $20 million. "That's where some of these stand-alone aquariums run into problems, is they run into these 200-plus support staffs because they had to put all the management in place, whereas we ... already have to zoo infrastructure that supports it."

This estimate is conservative????? In what universe???

3) They , talk about all these adjunct programs with elemantary schools presumably to show where these 1.3 million visitors are going to come from:

"Panelists discussed teaming up with schools across Iowa, linking curriculum with "real life experience," using Web cams to allow students to monitor plant growth and animal behavior, allowing students, teachers and scientists to work side by side in a "living lab" - exploring plant genetics, water filtration systems and biotechnology."

Did you catch the "webcam"? You mean like, remote learning, over the internet? Something Iowa's kids could do now by, say, linking with the rainforest in Cornwall? Or Omaha? We already have the technology to do virtual living labs, presuming the school has sufficient computers. If not, should we not be spending the money to get more computers and better high-speed hookups?

That's what burns me - the proponents of this monstrosity keep talking about how it will enhance Iowa's education, but when you get down to brass tacks, it would cost less to buy every kid in Iowa a ticket to the Omaha zoo. According to census statistics, there are approximately 511,825 kids in Iowa between the ages of 5 and 18 - 181,603 between 5 and 13, and 346,891 from 13-18. Ticket prices at the Zoo are: ages 5-11 $4, adults ages 12 and up $7.75. That puts ticket prices for all of them at $3.5 million or so (3,414,817.25). Factor in another mill or two for transportation and teacher tickets, and round it to 5.5 million. That means that for the total $180 million this project will cost we could send every school age kid in Iowa to the Omaha zoo 36 times. Heck, we could probably ship half of them off to South America to see a real one, but I've already spent too much time on this blog to justify researching those figures.

We could also buy many, many little personal computers for the kids to do just what they're proposing: virtual learning in a living lab. So if you want to save the rainforest, and are absolutely committed to spending this kind of money to do it, I think you should try this. Take half the money and buy a rainforest preserve of whatever size in South America. Spend the other half on computers to show allow the kids in Iowa to track "their" rainforest, link with the rangers, learn about the ecosystems. We'd have saved something real instead of building something fake, and could allow a more realistic "hands on" educational experience. Think about it: the kids could be involved from start to finish. Where can we buy the land? How much will it cost? What animals live there? How are we going to make sure they're taken care of? What happens after a storm/drought/etc?

"He said he would be willing to fill Gill in on those prospects.

'I'm disappointed that Tom isn't current," Oman said. "And we need to see to it that he is, and I'm sure that when he's updated, I know that he'll have a better understanding of status and might acquire some patience.'"

UPDATE: As State 29 points out in the comments, support for Bush does not make one a Republican (I know several red voters who would add "thank God" to that statement). And, of course, support for Kerry doesn't make one a Democrat either. (Amen, as several Blue voters I know would say).

I only cite he and Matt as examples because it is apparent to me that whatever else the red and blue voters may disagree on, just about everyone agrees the fake rainforest in Coralville is a big mistake. Except for the people on the advisory committee for the project, some of which keep writing letters to the editor and guest editorials in support of the darn thing. Here's a list of committee members from the Press-Citizen archives. The highlighted names are people who've penned letters to the editor or editorials in support of the project. Get the links from Professor Johnson's website.

• Sheila Boyd, General Growth.
• Randy Rayner, Laborers Local No. 1238.
• Scott Carpenter, University of Iowa Department of Geoscience.
• Dick (Richard L.) Rex, former mayor of West Branch.
• Lois Crowley, Iowa City Community School District.
• Chris Rohret, Iowa City Community School District.
• Sen. Bob Dvorsky, D-Coralville.
• Sheila Samuelson, 2004 University of Iowa biology graduate.
• Coralville Mayor Jim Fausett.
• Chris Scarpellino, Loparex Inc.
• Rick Hanna, Carpenters Local Union 1260.
• Josh Schamberger, Iowa City/ Coralville Convention & Visitors Bureau.
• Coralville City Administrator Kelly Hayworth.
• Dr. Jill Scholz, Family Foot Care.
• John Hudson, Iowa Arts Council.
• Linda Schreiber, Iowa City Area Development.
• Sandra Hudson, Iowa Incubator.
• Sharon Thomas, Iowa City Community School District.
• Beth Jorgensen, Iowa City Community School District.
• Neil Trott, Canterbury Inn.
• Johnson County Supervisor Terrence Neuzil.
• Deanna Trumbell, Trumbell Consulting.
• Mark Phillips, RSM McGladrey.
• Ed Williams, Biowa.
• Wayne Peterson, United States Department of Agriculture.
• Joe Raso, Iowa City Area Development.

Just something to keep in mind next time you see a pro-rainforest "Guest Opinion" like this one.

posted by Kris at 11:48 PM