Museum of History and Art Plans Expansion : Culture: Officials with the crowded facility are studying strategies to finance the estimated $7.5-million project.

The Ventura County Museum of History and Art has developed plans for a $7.5-million expansion project and is conducting a feasibility study to determine how to raise the money.

The 82-year-old museum, which has only two exhibition rooms, is feeling belated growing pains. “It’s long overdue,” said William Orcutt, president of the museum’s board. “We’ve got wall-to-wall and floor-to-floor exhibits in some places.”

A prospectus detailing the expansion outlines an “achievable vision” of tripling the size of the museum, from 14,000 to 44,000 square feet. The plan includes a $3-million extension of the museum’s library, storage and preservation areas and construction of new classrooms and workshops. A $1.25-million auditorium has also been proposed, along with a $1.5-million meeting-and-lecture room and $1.25 million in new gallery space.

Plans remain “nebulous” at this point, Orcutt said, adding that the final cost has yet to be nailed down. “There’ve been figures from $5 million to $10 million thrown out,” he said. “It’s hardly a hard figure at this point.”

The feasibility study will be completed by the board’s February meeting, according to Orcutt.

“The basic premise in the whole thing is to increase educational opportunities within the community,” said Mary Schwabauer, chairwoman of the docent council and past president of the museum board. “If we can provide greater exposure within the museum environment, for not only students and their families but for those within the community who may not be aware of what the history of our county is, it will enrich everyone’s life.”

Corporate philanthropy has dropped sharply since the deep-pocketed oil companies left the county, Schwabauer said. But she remains optimistic that the museum will meet its fund-raising goal. “I cannot imagine that it would not be successful,” she said.

The museum lost all county funding in 1978 and turned itself into a nonprofit corporation with the help of community members. Since then, the museum has maintained an annual budget of $450,000.

The museum has been stretching its wings recently. This month, it launched an exhibit of the work of famed ceramist and Ojai resident Beatrice Wood, which will continue through Feb. 10.

In January 1994, the museum won a prestigious, $50,979 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Yet as federal generosity shrinks in this budget-cutting era, the museum is turning again to those who kept it afloat in harder times.

“Resources are scarce for everybody,” said Sally Yount, board vice president. “We have to make sure that what we do is extremely targeted to make sure we get the most bang for the bucks.”

More space would allow the museum to dust off items kept in storage and put them on display. Schwabauer said the potential of a trove of 2,500 county maps stored at the museum, the largest collection of its kind, “has only been touched on.”

“There has not really been an opportunity to take them out and look at them,” she said.

The expansion would require no zoning changes, according to Orcutt, because it would take place on land the facility already rents and is not using.

The museum, which attracted 38,000 visitors in 1994, “has always been known for doing things very carefully,” Yount said. Board members aim to continue that approach in planning their expansion.

“We certainly don’t want to spend our funds on something that’s kind of a pig in a poke,” Schwabauer said.