Site Donation Brightens Hopes for a New Art Museum : Culture: A $450,000 gift also spurs backers’ optimism about raising the millions needed to build a downtown structure.

The Long Beach Museum of Art is spread all over the place these days.

Traveling art exhibitions are displayed at the institution’s main facility, a cramped brick-and-wood-frame house overlooking the ocean that the museum has occupied for 41 years. Because of fire and security concerns there, most of the museum’s permanent 1,300-piece collection of paintings is in a Los Angeles warehouse. And to view the museum’s vast collection of artistic videotapes, patrons must go to a small studio in Belmont Shore.

Last week, museum officials unveiled a plan to change all that by constructing a 65,000-square-foot facility near the downtown Convention and Entertainment Center in the next five to eight years.

Similar plans have been announced before, only to be scrapped. But this time things are different, museum officials say. For example, the city has donated land--a 50,000-square-foot parcel fronting the Terrace Theater on Ocean Boulevard--and the city’s Redevelopment Agency has offered a $450,000 gift to get the ball rolling.

Much of the opposition that thwarted previous efforts has been neutralized. And despite a recession that will result in the museum’s first annual operating deficit in years, museum officials say they are confident they can raise the estimated $15 million needed to finance the project.

“It will be a daunting challenge, but we have a very good community that really believes in the museum and what it can do for Long Beach,” said Hal Nelson, the museum’s director.

Sheri Beebe, president of the Long Beach Museum of Art Foundation’s board of directors, which will oversee the fund-raising effort, expressed similar sentiments. “I’m very excited,” she said.

Museum officials have been talking for years about moving from the quaint building at Bluff Park that was once the summer home of a wealthy philanthropist. The museum has occupied the two-story building since it was formed in 1950 as a municipal operation financed entirely by the city.

The private, nonprofit museum foundation took control in 1985, and the museum’s growing popularity has increasingly taxed the waterfront building, which still looks like a private home.

Museum membership has grown from about 900 just two years ago to more than 1,500 now. About 46,000 people a year now visit the museum, compared to about 33,000 in 1988. Patrons have long complained about lack of parking, inadequate space for classes and general inaccessibility by bus or rapid transit.

Three years ago, museum and city officials discussed moving the museum to the high-rise Landmark Square Building, then under construction. The downtown location, they argued, would not only provide easy access by bus or Blue Line, but would enhance the museum’s image and contribute to the revitalization of the area.

But officials encountered a number of problems that prompted them to abandon the plan.

The museum’s director at the time, Stephen Garrett, drew criticism after suggesting that the old building be sold to help raise money for the new one. Owned by the city, the building has long been a familiar landmark in town.

City Councilman Wallace Edgerton, whose district includes the current site, also opposed a downtown location. Edgerton said he favored moving the museum to El Dorado Park on the city’s east side.

A lack of funds also contributed to abandonment of the effort.

Museum officials now say the first two issues are moot this time.

They say they hope to maintain the present museum building as an educational facility even after moving downtown. Last year, the structure--which was built in 1912 and once served as a club for Navy officers--was declared to be a historical landmark. The designation probably will prevent its demolition.

And Edgerton said he has changed his mind about a downtown location for the museum. “I think it can only have a positive impact on the downtown area,” he said. “All said and done, it’s certainly a plus, and I think we should try to be supportive.”

Raising money for the venture, however, remains a major challenge, officials concede.

The museum, which has been operating with an annual budget of $1.4 million, is facing a deficit of $100,000 to $150,000 in the current fiscal year because of a decline in corporate donations, said Beebe, president of the foundation board. Officials plan to dip into the museum’s $600,000 reserve fund to make up the difference, and they have laid off four part-time employees to balance next year’s budget.

But by the time the museum begins raising money in earnest for the proposed move, Beebe said, she expects the economy to have rebounded. And the $450,000 in seed money pledged by the city’s Redevelopment Agency will provide a good start, she said.

The redevelopment money will come from the $80 million expansion of the city’s Convention and Entertainment Center. The city requires developers--in this case the agency itself--to spend at least 1% of their construction budgets on public art, and part of that 1% will be offered to the museum, according to Susan Schick, the city’s director of community development.

For the institution to keep the money, she said, it must raise half of the $15 million it needs within three years and the entire amount within five years after the Convention and Entertainment Center expansion begins. Groundbreaking is set for November.

Museum officials say they will hire an outside consultant to study fund-raising possibilities. “We’re in the planning stages right now,” Beebe said. “When we start asking for money, we’ll have all of our ducks lined up. Ultimately, I’m confident that the community will support us.

“We are very aware of the false starts that have gone on before and we really want to overcome them,” Beebe added. “We think (the trick) is in the planning.”