The only thing about this deal that won't go underwater is the submarine parked outside.

good luck selling or renting at this point. Next year is going to make this year look like a cake walk. We have not seen anything yet! Obama MUST roll out a new deal 2 so we can get the hammers swinging again all over the country. If he misses the mark on this, expect one term in office. He can't listen to that pathetic Barney Frank, Nancy Pelosi, Dodd...etc. I hope he will hold their feet to the fire. In all honesty the Dems have blown their credibility since taking over DC after the GOP wake up call.
Thanks for listening to this rant.

What better way to fix a money-losing idea like OMSI than throw more money at it. This worked really well with the convention center.

But obstacles lie ahead, including potential zoning changes in the central eastside industrial district.

Great...Pearl District east..

Reading that piece I just had a sudden "click" of awareness of why I don't think much of OMSI (and why I don't think it will ever be (a) worthwhile or (b) profitable), despite a lifelong fascination with both science and technology/industry:

Just like high-school team mascots and suburban subdivisions typically take their names from things that have been all or nearly all wiped out, museums are about things that aren't part of your everyday life: Egyptian art, paleolithic man, extinct creatures, the Renaissance, etc.

In other words, a science museum means putting science on a part with other things that we're expected to marvel at before returning to our everyday life. But a museum must also compete with other marvels available to the desired audience -- an audience that is absolutely drowning in other marvels close at hand. (Marvels almost entirely based on science and industry, but careful to conceal the fact behind smooth plastic --- see iPods, e.g.)

So the basic premise of OMSI is bad. Prime waterfront land in a major city, land that is typically worth the most when used for either full-time occupation for people or for full-time use for industry (since it occupies prime space with access to cheap waterborne transport), has been reduced to being a Saturday attraction so that parents can pat themselves on the back for giving their overstimulated kids a "science" entertainment.

I say shut it down before it tries to plunder more money from worthwhile programs (like the attempt to grab $5M from the Energy Trust).

I note with sadness the appointment of Grand Deluder Maziotti, late of the PDC, to the board of The Portland Family of Funds.

The plot continues to thicken.

Now I'll admit that I was inordinately fond of OMSI while I lived in Portland: in fact, it was one of the only things that kept me sane before I could escape. That said, OMSI has the same problem that many of the new generation of science museums have: they're pretty much all the same. Instead of focusing on exhibits that might actually attract attendees, such as the Sam Noble Museum in Oklahoma City setting up a world-class dinosaur and Indian history exhibition, OMSI has the same generic "Hands-on Science" displays that you see everywhere else. Oh, they'd be fun if most of the exhibits weren't broken, but it's not anything new.

The fact that OMSI doesn't have any integral exhibits able to attract patrons is aggravated by its addiction to traveling exhibitions. That's also getting really common with badly planned museums: who gives a damn about getting any local content when we can just borrow from others? After a while, though, it gets to be like a typical PBS station: exhibits that can be seen damn near everywhere, and at a cost high enough that the museum barely breaks even after the tour is over. (And that's with the ones that actually have some science involved: anyone remember the "Star Trek: Federation Science" touring exhibition in '96 that was supposed to save OMSI's bacon? $15 to see a collection of Next Generation props and displays that were somehow supposed to teach science while impressing the Star Trek brand name on everything, and OMSI still had a big pile of action figures and other Star Trek crap for the Cat Piss Men that was rotting in the corner two years later.) Apartments and other development aren't going to help the situation: they're just going to delay the collapse of what could have been a great museum if the greedheads hadn't been in charge from the beginning.