Congrats To The North Carolina Zoo

From the Downtown Greensboro Aquarium Facebook Page:

"The North Carolina zoo at Asheboro had a record breaking attendance in 2012. Families with kids flocked from all over to visit the zoo since it is the the only one of its kind for miles around. That's what a great animal facility does for an area and that's what a world class aquarium will do for Greensboro. I learned a long time ago that kids make the world go around. Parents and grand-parents will do anything for kids. Build an aquarium with interactive learning games and great exhibits and you will have millions of people flocking downtown Greensboro every year. New jobs plus conservation and medical research done at the venue will bring high paying jobs to Greensboro, too! Think about the local universities expanding into marine biology and veterinary studies; students from UNCG, A&T and HP University and others will intern and help run the venue. It's a win-win situation if done right.

Help bring a world class aquarium to downtown Greensboro and help make Greensboro a destination for millions of people and not just a pass-thru city. Share the page and invite people to the fan page so the local politicians know that this is a serious idea to be looked at. We do not need a GPAC. Every city around us has a PAC and we already have a PAC (granted not the best around but still very usable). We need to have our own identity and being another city with a PAC is not going to help Greensboro have it. Our neighbors to our immediate north are building a PAC, too. The PAC pie is getting smaller so do we want a sliver of a pie or have our own pie? I say let's have our own pie and along with Aquatic Center we can be known as the Aquatic City of the Carolinas! Let's do it!"

Fish Man agrees!

Giving Greensboro What It Really Needs

In recent months ol' Fish Man has been reading of a lot of things that local leaders say are needed in downtown Greensboro if Downtown and the rest of Greensboro is to grow and prosper. The following are some of the things they've mentioned:

A downtown university campus.
More downtown residents. Of course, to get more downtown residents you also need more downtown jobs.
Airport development.
Tourism.
Shoppers.
Parking.

Now think for a second, what one thing can help to bring all those things to Downtown Greensboro? If you guessed a performing arts center you're wrong but if you guessed a world class aquarium that's open from early in the morning until late at night, 7 days a week, 365 Days a year then you're smarter than the average fish.

Aquariums are designed to be places to teach and learn. We wouldn't even think about building an aquarium without inviting Greensboro's colleges, universities and public schools to be a part of the process.

Aquariums bring real jobs paying far more than most jobs.

A downtown aquarium would give people a reason to use Piedmont Triad International Airport more often.

How does 3 Million visitors a year sound for tourism? GPAC is predicting just 300 thousand. That's 10 times the economic impact or more.

You think at least some of those visitors won't shop?

You do understand that we're planning to include a parking garage, right? We can make it big enough to park a few extra cars. And with the proposed monorail or shuttle we can almost guarantee more shopping and dining at Downtown restaurants.

All the things a performing arts center has fallen short on can be provided by a Downtown Greensboro Aquarium if Greensboro wants to build it. The question is: does Greensboro want to build it?

Aquariums Bring Real Jobs

I can't begin to tell you how many jobs a downtown Greensboro Aquarium might bring to Greensboro but I can tell you what some of those jobs might be and what they might pay.

Marine biologists earn from $36,000 to over $100,000 per year.

"The average yearly wages of chemists were $71,070 in May 2008. Materials scientists had average yearly wages of $81,600. According to the National Association of Colleges and Employers, beginning salary offers in July 2009 for graduates with a bachelor's degree in chemistry averaged $39,897 a year." --BLS.gov

Pharmaceutical engineer earn an average of $84,000 per year

According to Payscale.com, college professors like those who might be teaching at the Greensboro Aquarium earn from $57,350 to $104,260 a year plus bonuses. There would also be skilled trades involved in maintaining the aquarium that would require specialists in HVAC, welders, pipefitters, electricians, computer technicians and more. None of these skills come cheap.

Of course, these would all be full time jobs. There would also be other lesser paying full time jobs as well as part time jobs with wages I can't begin to discern. And how does this compare to some of the best paying jobs a downtown performing arts center might bring us? From Salary of a Theatrical Technician

"According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, set designers in the theater company industry earned an average 2010 salary of $39,620 per year. Audio, video and sound engineering technicians typically earn higher salaries than set designers. Federal statistics report that audio and video equipment technicians in the theater industry earned an average salary of $45,020 per year as of May 2010. Sound engineering technicians, who record the tracks needed to be used during a theatrical production, earned an average salary of $47,110 per year in 2010.

Construction technicians are employed by theater companies in order to create the sets, lighting plots and sound design constructed by the design technician staff. Carpenters and electricians involved in theatrical construction both earn better average salaries than technical design staff. Federal statistics reported that the average 2010 salary for carpenters employed by theater companies was $51,800 per year, while electricians earned $55,730 per year. Painters employed by theater companies earned much lower salaries among construction staff members, averaging $30,930 per year as of 2010."

In other words, there is no comparison. And that's without making mention of the businesses that will grow around the aquarium, restaurants, shops, hotels, truck and bus dealers, shuttles, food trucks owned by Greensboro restaurants, garages, body shops, distribution warehouses, feed suppliers, agricultural industries and hundreds of other locally owned small businesses that a performing arts center could never bring to Greensboro.

How Could An Aquarium Help Your Greensboro Business?

Yes, the Downtown Greensboro Aquarium is still in the dream stages but it's not too soon to start asking existing Greensboro business owners how they might fit into the picture. For example: NC Aquarium in Pine Knoll Shores allows local restaurants to do seafood taste tests at the aquarium as a way to lure in customers.We could do that.

But what if your business isn't a seafood restaurant? What if your business isn't a restaurant at all? Already we're kicking around an idea that would allow local businesses to make money through licensing products but even that won't work for everybody. What could a Downtown Greensboro Aquarium do in the way of cooperative marketing or just plain old cooperation between friends and neighbors that would help your business grow?

Those are the things we want to know and we want to know them early so we can build them into the planning process. And unlike that other project that recently took place in Downtown Greensboro, instead of forming a task force of a few select people guarenteed to follow the party line, we want your opinions on how to do these things. No, we can't be everything to everyone but we'll be everything we can.

So e-mail ol' Fish Man at GreensboroAquarium@gmail.com with your ideas and myself and real people will get back to you as fast as we can swim back up the Internet with answers to your questions, solutions to your problems, questions for your questions and concerns about your concerns.

Don't forget to like us on Facebook and please help spread the word.

Paying The Bosses

In today's News & Record, Don Campbell of nearby Siler City writes the following letter to the editor:

" In a recent Dilbert cartoon, the pointy-headed boss tells the employee that the plan is to make employees pay the employer for the privilege of working there. How is this different from our state, local or county governments offering financial “incentives” to companies to choose their area?

We’re told this brings much-needed jobs. But if we are paying through our tax dollars to entice companies to move, are we not paying them for the privilege of working for them? "

Don has an excellent point, we are paying the bosses for the "right" to work for them and in my book and the book of most Americans, liberal and conservative alike, we don't believe that's the way our system was intended to work. That's why Fish Man is proposing that the Downtown Greensboro Aquarium be designed as a new public-private partnership owned by the City of Greensboro, the citizens of Greensboro and others who buy stock in the company. We don't want incentives in-so-much as we want loans and the privilege of contributing to Greensboro's, Guilford County's and North Carolina's tax base. I mean, let's be real, if you're giving money away then Fish Man will gladly take a fin out but what I really want to do is swim to a local Greensboro bank and write checks to local employees, businesses and even tax departments.

After all, what is a fish going to do with all that money? Until you dummies learn how to properly bait a hook I've got all the fresh worms I can eat.

But seriously, folks, have you ever heard of a pro sports aquarium that packed up and left town because the wanted a newer stadium or an aquarium that took incentives then outsourced all its jobs as soon as the incentives ran out? You haven't heard of these things because they don't happen, nor will they happen if the City of Greensboro and the citizens of Greensboro invest and buy stock to build a Downtown Greensboro Aquarium.

Or, you can wait for the folks in charge of Greensboro to do things the way they have always done things. Click on the link to e-mail City Council and tell them to forget all about that silly GPAC thing. Tell them it won't float. Tell them you want to invest your money in a public/private downtown Greensboro Aquarium and bring real economic growth, jobs and prosperity to Greensboro. Tell them it just makes sense.

Tell 'em, Fish Man set you.

What Could A Downtown Aquarium Do For Greensboro?

Look, Fish Man isn't making any promises but I just talked with some Big Mouth Bass over in East Tennessee and here's what they had to say,

"This is what a world class aquarium did to Chattanooga!

Economic impact:
The Tennessee Aquarium is credited with igniting the “Renaissance on the River,” and the revitalization of downtown Chattanooga. No single project has played a greater role in revitalizing downtown.

With more than $2 billion in new investment in the downtown area since 1990, Chattanooga is fast becoming a model for all that a mid-sized downtown can be.

According to the Chattanooga Area Convention and Visitors Bureau, 3 million people visit Chattanooga each year.

Tourism is a $690 million industry in Chattanooga and Hamilton County.

Tourism and hospitality account for 7,300 Chattanooga and Hamilton County jobs with an annual payroll of over $150 million.

Downtown employment rose 38 percent from 1992 to 2002 – (58 percent of that increase took place between 1997 and 2002.)"

And don't forget to like us on Facebook.

What About Parking?

Some people are asking what about parking at the Downtown Greensboro Aquarium and that my friends is a very valid question. For starters, as we are proposing to place the aquarium on the abandoned city owned site at the southeast corner of Lee and Elm, parking will be incorporated into the project. But that probably won't be enough parking.

So I was thinking why not arrange regulated, privately owned shuttle services between the aquarium and other local attractions like the Greensboro Natural Science Center, the North Carolina Zoo in Ashboro, Old Salem in Winston-Salem, Company Shops in Burlington, the NC Transportation Museum in Spencer, the Tank Museum in Danville and more. Doing this could build an entire new local transportation industry and jobs centered around the aquarium that would bring growth to the entire Piedmont Triad and beyond. The aquarium shuttles could also be used as mass transit for locals going to and from Greensboro thereby reducing Greensboro's and the region's publicly funded mass transit needs in the future.

But what would I know, I'm just a fish. Anyway, these are just some of the thoughts that are swimming in my head as I swim through Greensboro looking out from Buffalo Creek and wondering how it ever got this bad with all you smart people in charge and hoping no one pulls that fallen Time-Warner cable from the creek and cuts me off from the Internet and the rest of Greensboro.

Please remember to swim by our Facebook page and like us while you're there.

Why A Downtown Greensboro Aquarium?

Look, while we point to Atlanta as an example for Greensboro's downtown aquarium let's be real, Greensboro is no Atlanta. But Greensboro is a far bigger city than Chattanooga, home of the wildly successful Tennessee Aquarium. And no, we don't have a river which means we'll not need to spend $10 to $30 Million Dollars each time we need to build a bridge across the river. You think buildings are expensive, try building bridges.

So why build an aquarium downtown? From Lisa Ashmore's Aquarium as Urban Savior: Is it Time to Redesign the Aquarium Model?:

"But regional aquariums don’t all have to have blockbuster, budget-crunching buildings. “We’re seeing a lot more $30 million aquariums than $100 million aquariums,” Kuttner said. They can outperform zoos, according to the architects, since their footprint is smaller, there are more species comparatively, and they’re usually convenient to a lot of people. And they’re inside, something that makes a big difference for summer travelers."

So what did the Tennessee Aquarium cost to build? Yes, I know we'll probably have to spend more but the total cost of building the Tennessee Aquarium came to $75 Million Dollars just $3 Million Dollars more than the original and most likely most accurate GPAC estimate we've heard to date. And did I mention our Aquarium could be designed so that it could be built in stages so that the earlier stages could finance the construction of the latter stages?

But Greensboro is already building an aquarium at the Natural Science Center? So, Tampa, Florida has 4 aquariums and Kansas City is considering a second aquarium. Look, we all know you want to attract people here, right? By working together the Natural Science Center could display fish that aren't found at the downtown aquarium or other aquariums and the downtown aquarium could offer discounted passes to the Natural Science Center to drive visitors there as well as to other area attractions. Compliment, not compete. After all, there's more than one way to make money with a boat and there's more than one way to make money with an aquarium.

Did I mention aquariums employ a lot of high paid scientists and technicians? Or that they work with the chemical and pharmaceutical industries in producing new drugs, chemicals and other high tech products? Did I mention aquariums attract university programs? And while I don't know for sure, I'm even betting my friends over at the nanocenter could find uses for a state of the art aquarium. What's that? I never told you I have friends in very high places at the nanocenter? I've known them since long before there was a nanocenter.

I called up my last boss yesterday and mentioned what I was up to. The first words out of his mouth, "Now that's something I would take my family to." He and his family were vacationing out of state.

Without dropping any names, my last boss is in his 30s, owns several successful Greensboro businesses that he and I built during the recent down economic period and a couple that didn't fare so well. He employees about 30 Greensboro residents, is a really nice guy, has 3 young children, married and lives in a big paid-off home in one of Greensboro's high end neighborhoods. And he made it before he inherited his daddy's substantial chunk of money. He went on to tell me that the only thing his family ever does in downtown Greensboro is to visit the Greensboro Children's Museum.

Now I don't know for certain but I'm thinking my last boss and his family (He has a successful brother here as well.) are exactly the demographic Downtown Greensboro has been desperately trying to attract for years but has never managed to reel in. Wonder why?

If you draw a circle around the Piedmont Triad that covers everyone within 3 hours driving from Greensboro you get 4-5 Million people. If you can draw 1/4 to 1/5 of that number you get 1 Million visitors a year. If we network with the North Carolina Zoo in Asheboro we can boost attendance to both attractions as well as the areas many other lesser known attractions. Now where are the closest competing aquariums? Fort Fisher, NC, 224 miles and Ripley's Myrtle Beach, SC, 196 miles. And unlike Fort Fisher, you won't get bitten by fire ants in Downtown Greensboro. Sorry, I couldn't resist.

Of course, we shouldn't build a downtown aquarium unless Greensboro wants a downtown aquarium. And unlike GPAC, we shouldn't spend $300,000 of City money to find out if Greensboro wants a downtown aquarium. And we don't have to. With social networking tools like the Greensboro Aquarium Facebook Page we can gauge if Greensboro wants a downtown aquarium. 137 likes in 2 days? Not bad considering that the GPAC Facebook page got 194 likes in almost a year.

And finally, as I pointed out yesterday, I believe it can be done with private funding if it is determined that Greensboro really wants a downtown aquarium.

So instead of why build a downtown aquarium, the question becomes, why not build a downtown aquarium?

And about that identity Greensboro has been searching for...