NEW YORK (AP)
-- With its huge reflecting pools, ringed by waterfalls and
skyscrapers, and a cavernous underground museum still under
construction, the National Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum at the World
Trade Center is an awesome spectacle that moved and inspired some 4.5
million visitors in its first year.
But all
that eye-welling magnificence comes with a jaw-dropping price tag. The
foundation that runs the memorial estimates that once the roughly $700
million project is complete, the memorial and museum will together cost
$60 million a year to operate.
The anticipated
cost has bothered some critics and raised concerns even among the
memorial's allies that the budget may be unsustainable without a hefty
government subsidy.
By comparison, the
National Park Service budgeted $8.4 million this year to operate and
maintain Gettysburg National Military Park and $3.6 million for the
monument that includes the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor. Running
Arlington National Cemetery, which has more than 14,000 graves and
receives 4 million visitors a year, costs $45 million annually.
Officials at the 9/11 memorial say they face unique challenges that make comparisons to other national memorials difficult.
The
foundation plans to spend at least a fifth of its operating budget, or
around $12 million per year, on private security because of terrorism
fears. Visitors to the memorial plaza pass through airport-like
security, and armed guards patrol the grounds.
"The
fact of the matter is that this was a place that was attacked twice,"
said Joseph Daniels, the foundation's president and chief executive.
Just
operating the two massive fountains that mark the spots where the twin
towers once stood will cost another $4.5 million to $5 million annually,
said the foundation's spokesman, Michael Frazier.
Foundation
officials didn't respond to requests for information about other costs
at the site, including the anticipated expense of running the museum,
which is still unfinished and might not be anytime soon.
The
museum was supposed to open this month, but construction all but ceased
a year ago because of a funding squabble between the foundation and the
Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the land the
memorial sits on.
Daniels said it will take at
least a year for the museum to open once construction resumes, meaning
the site may not be fully complete until at least 2014.
The
failure to open the museum on time has thrown off the foundation's
financial planning. Officials had expected to use the museum, being
built mostly with money from various government agencies, plus private
donations, as its main source of revenue.
While
visitors will be allowed into the above-ground portions of the memorial
for free, the foundation plans to charge people to descend into the
museum's exhibition space, where they will see portraits of the nearly
3,000 victims, hear oral histories of the tragedy and view artifacts
such as the staircase World Trade Center workers used to flee on 9/11.
The
admission price hasn't been set. Foundation officials say they may also
charge a "suggested donation" where visitors would be allowed to enter
for free but would be strongly encouraged to pay a yet-undecided amount.
But
if the museum gets the 2 million visitors a year the foundation
expects, a $12 fee, like the one charged at the memorial to the victims
of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, would cover 40 percent of the
operating costs. More money will be generated through fundraising and
the sale of memorabilia.
In addition, the
foundation and several elected officials have proposed that the American
public pick up one-third of the operating costs.
So
far, Congress has balked. A bill proposed by Sen. Daniel Inouye,
D-Hawaii, that would have had the National Park Service contribute $20
million per year ran into opposition from Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., who
noted that the federal government had already spent $300 million on the
project.
A National Park Service official,
William Shaddox, testified at a hearing that $20 million is more than
the agency can afford, and larger than the entire annual appropriation
for nearly 99 percent of the parks in its system.
Copyright 2012 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
