Scripps Over Last Hurdle in Quest for New Aquarium

For years, they’ve been packing them in like sardines at the aquarium at UCSD’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography, the aging facility that officials have long acknowledged has simply outlived its usefulness as a public attraction.

On weekends, for example, so many people jam into the 38-year-old building, badly deteriorating from the ever-present salt water in the coastal mist, that a waiting line often snakes out onto the adjacent aquarium grounds.

On Tuesday, aquarium officials realized a 20-year-old dream when the California Coastal Commission unanimously approved construction of a new $10-million aquarium and museum within view of the old one.

Over the years, the La Jolla facility developed a problem unique for an aquarium--too many schools.

“It gets pretty bad, especially in the summer,” said Tom Collins, associate director for administration at Scripps Institution. “We try to schedule all the school-age tour groups during the week. But, if something goes wrong, they all show up on the weekend.

“It’s never happened to me, but I imagine that some weekend guests have literally pulled their hair out at the commotion.”

That is, if they could find a parking spot. The standing joke around the aquarium is that the place accommodates 370,000 visitors a year with about nine parking spaces.

“On weekdays, there were only nine spots outside the building that were available to the public,” said Donald Wilkie, director of the aquarium which perches on a scenic hillside along La Jolla Shores Drive.

“The rest of the parking is in a remote location, so people have to walk a quarter-mile uphill after their visit. It was a hardship for older people and families.”

The new Stephen Birch Aquarium-Museum will feature 34,600 square feet of display area--more than twice that of the existing 12,500-square-foot Scripps Aquarium--and include classrooms, offices, even a bookstore.

And, as if aquarium officials needed a hook, the facility will also include an 5,000 square feet more of displays on its grounds, including a new outdoor tide pool.

Inside the new aquarium, scheduled to open in the fall of 1991, the museum portion will be four times as big as its predecessor. The aquarium will also intrigue visitors with 40 viewing tanks, almost twice as many as the existing 22.

Window on 70,000-Gallon Tank of Sea Life

It will also feature a new, 70,000-gallon tank that, with its 12- by 20-foot viewing window, will provide the largest unobstructed viewing window in the aquarium field, officials say.

“It will provide an unprecedented look into the tank within,” said Wilkie, “an opportunity to view the sport fish we’ll have on display, the yellowtail jack and sea basses--larger variations of those species that the old tanks were just too small to hold.”

And, perhaps just as important, a 250-space parking lot will adjoin the new aquarium, which will be built across the street from the old one, on a wooded knoll on the east side of La Jolla Shores Drive.

The new site will provide a view of the ocean and beach, Scripps buildings and pier, La Jolla and La Jolla Cove, and, on a clear day, San Clemente Island.

“The view will be utterly fantastic,” Wilkie said. “You couldn’t afford to buy that lot with all the money in the world.”

For the public, however, the new aquarium may demand a price. Officials now ask adults for a $3 donation at the existing facility. They are considering requiring a formal $5 admission fee at the new structure.

Like many associated with the aquarium, Wilkins could not hide his enthusiasm Wednesday over the go-ahead for the new aquarium.

“It’s a once in a lifetime event, the culmination of a 20-year dream for many people associated with this aquarium,” said Wilkie, who has been aquarium director for more than 24 years.

“When they finally open those doors, it will be like winning the World Series. I’ll just be speechless.”

One Funding Setback After Another

The museum will serve as the interpretive center for Scripps, the nation’s oldest and largest oceanographic center. Scripps has operated an aquarium and museum in various locations since shortly after it was founded in 1903.

For more than two decades, however, Scripps has wanted to replace the existing aquarium but has suffered one funding setback after another.

Collins said that UC San Diego, the oceanography institution’s educational parent, was unable to fund the project by itself.

“You have to remember that the aquarium is a public service funded by the university, which has a long list of priorities,” he said. “The aquarium program is just part of our institution. Our main thrust is as a scientific institution, and accommodating our students is the highest priority.”

In 1986, however, officials announced the receipt of a $6-million donation from the Delaware-based Stephen and Mary Birch Foundation. In addition to the $1.6 million they received from private donations locally, they still must raise another half-million dollars to complete the project.

Wilkie has an enthusiastic answer to that. No problem, he says.

The Coastal Commission’s blessing on the new aquarium was the last hurdle to be cleared before the university could solicit bids on the project beginning next month.

“We’re finishing up design details right now,” he said. “As soon as the final drawings are done, this project will be ready to go to bed.”

The aquarium will display mainly Pacific Coast marine life, including that of the kelp beds off La Jolla and the vibrant sea life along the California and Baja coasts.

But the aquarium’s goal will be to attract support for marine science in general, Wilkie said. “We have public education goals to increase the understanding of the ocean and stress the point that its resources need to be used wisely.”

Though much larger than its predecessor, the new aquarium will be be about one-fifth the size of the privately owned Monterey Bay Aquarium. But that doesn’t bother institute officials.

“I don’t think the community would support something on that scale, certainly not here in La Jolla,” Collins said. “We don’t do any advertising. Our role is to provide a public service for the people of San Diego.

“We’re not out hustling promotion. We take a different approach than in Monterey or at Sea World.”

The fate of the old aquarium is uncertain, Wilkie said. “There’s some structural damage, some severe corrosion,” he said. “We won’t know how bad it is until we vacate the building.

“We’d like to use the place as a site for some scientific collections owned by the university--geologic and vertebrate collections. But right now the fate of the building is unknown.”

The new aquarium, Wilkie said, will be a better for both people and fish. For the marine life, the image might be one of inmates getting a new prison with expanded cells.

“I wouldn’t say ‘prison,’ ” Wilkie said. “Actually, we’re trying to provide the closest thing we can to a natural habitat. The proximity to fresh salt water allows us to keep species healthier and alive longer than many other aquariums.

“And besides, we’ll have reproduction occurring in our tanks. That doesn’t happen in prison.”