$11.4 million Scottsdale's Museum of the West opens

• Star exhibit is 100-paintings that tell story of explorerers Lewis and Clark
• Well-known artists including Charles M. Russell%2C Georgia O%27Keefe and Fritz Scholder featured
• Museum leaders predict survival of %2411.4 million museum even though other Valley institutions have closed

Amid Arizona's luxury playground, with its plastic-surgery centers, high-end car shows and multimillion-dollar Arabians horses, a museum that celebrates the Old West opens Jan. 15 in Scottsdale.

Western Spirit: Scottsdale's Museum of the West tells the stories of 19 Western states with art, artifacts and depictions of early trailblazers. The seven inaugural exhibits include Wild West memorabilia such as sheriff's badges and saddles from the 1800s and bold, stirring works of the West's rugged landscape and characters such as Geronimo and Lewis and Clark.

The $11.4 million project is the third cultural attraction to open near Scottsdale in recent years, after numerous Valley cultural institutions almost simultaneously have been shuttered.

Leaders of the newest museum expect success to come from modest budgeting, strong leaders and visitors' hankering for Western culture — the latter of which is something almost 40 percent of visitors to Scottsdale say they want more of, according to surveys by the Scottsdale Convention and Visitors Bureau.

"The museum will help elevate the presence of the destination's Western culture while also providing guests another downtown experience," said Megan Doyle, the bureau's community affairs manager.

Museum leaders expect between 87,000 and 118,000 yearly visitors.

The museum is at First Street and Marshall Way, in the heart of Scottsdale's cultural district.

Its exterior is a copper cube. The inside smells of fresh paint, aged leather and the cedar and oak wood that caps the ceilings, staircases and floor boards. High ceilings, sometimes crowned by large rectangle windows and wide staircases, give the museum a rustic, spacious feel. Wagon wheels hang from ceilings. Leatherlike benches and the polished trunk of a tree provide seating in an outdoor sculpture garden.

The museum's 43,000 square feet of space features an auditorium and eight exhibit spaces. The exhibits, on loan from collectors and institutions, will rotate about every six months.

Scottsdale owns the publicly-funded museum and expects revenue from the city's hotel-bed tax, which funds tourism-related efforts, to pay off the construction debt.

The City Council agreed to provide up to $400,000 in matching funds for the museum annually for operating expenses, also paid for by the bed tax, for the next five years.

The museum's operational revenue is expected to be $1.5 million in its first stabilized year and growing to $2.5 million by the fifth year.

"That's a drop in the bucket" compared with the operational budgets of other museums, said Museum of the West Director Mike Fox, who declined to reveal his salary for the non-profit. "We are going into this project with a very conservative management approach."

By comparison, the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art's budget is $2 million with 40,000 annual visitors; the Phoenix Art Museum's budget is $10 million and draws in 230,000 visitors each year; and the Heard Museum's budget is $10 million with 105,000 people visiting annually.

About 70 percent of the Heard's visitors are from other states. Fox said the Museum of the West also will garner most of its visitors, about 60 percent, from outside the Phoenix area.

The museum is counting on those visitors, since a bulk of its operating budget, 70 percent, will come from ticket and gift-shop sales and other earned income, such as rental of the facility. About 30 percent will come from donations, grants and government money, including from the city of Scottsdale.

By contrast, other museums rely far less on ticket sales for operation.

The Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art and the Phoenix Art Museum forecasts about 7 percent of its operating budget based on attendance.

Fox is confident now that the museum is built, the visitors will come.

"What we have going for us in Arizona is very different from those institutions," he said. "There's 9 million visitors to Scottsdale, specifically. It's a very different market and our subject matter is of such interest to people who want to experience the West. We have this conviction that the admissions of this institution will indeed match the people's interests to be entertained."

Museum and Scottsdale leadership are expecting art philanthropists — many on the museum's board — and leaders like Fox to rally people to donate to the museum.

Jim Bruner, chairman of the museum's board of trustees, said the museum is lucky to have Fox, who has opened and led several nationally known institutions, including the Muhammad Ali Museum in Louisville, Ky. and the Heard Museum locally.

The 19 trustee members are a who's-who in the Valley art, philanthropy and political scenes, including Messinger Mortuary owner Paul Messinger; Jamie Drinkwater Buchanan, daughter of former longtime Scottsdale Mayor Herb Drinkwater; Scottsdale councilwoman Virginia Korte; Frank Jacobson, the first Scottsdale Cultural Council director; and former Scottsdale Councilman Ned O'Hearn.

These are people who know people, Bruner said.

"Our board is definitely committed," he said. "They have assisted (financially) ... and have gone out to the community and received other assistance. We have a conservative operating budget and feel this will sustain itself and succeed."

The museum's first star exhibit is, "Inspirational Journey: The Story of Lewis and Clark Featuring the Artwork of Charles Fritz." The exhibit includes 100 works painted as the artist retraced the explorers' journey from St. Louis to Oregon in the early 1800s.

Inspirational Journey has shown 10 times since its completion six years ago and broke attendance records at art institutions in Oklahoma, Iowa and Montana.

Fritz, from Billings, Mont., said it's almost impossible to tell the story of Lewis and Clark and other Western characters from the perspective of one state alone.

"The Western story is a tapestry of people and stories and tribes," Fritz said. "You have so much that blend together,"

Fritz expects to return to the museum in April but, until then, patrons can hear him speak about the project at a video kiosk. Interactive iPads and kiosks are spread throughout the museum, in addition to no-tech flip charts that give more information about the artists and significance of the works.

Artists known even to people who don't "do art" are on display, including Charles M. Russell, Fritz Scholder and Georgia O'Keefe. Other artists might not be as popularly known, but their work captures such identifiable places as Sedona, the Grand Canyon and the Rockies.

A heritage wall features photographs of the West's wranglers and trailblazers from 100 years ago to today. Among them are Sandra Day O'Connor, who was spent her childhood on an Arizona ranch and was the the first woman appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Also recognized is Former Scottsdale Mayor Herb Drinkwater, who guided the city's transformation as a resort location. The notorious, like Billy the Kid, who moved to Arizona when on the run as a thief and gunfighter, also have a place on the wall. And, curiously, so does Bill Gates. The founder of Microsoft, the powerhouse of operating systems for computers, was born in the western state of Washington, where Microsoft is still headquartered.

The museum was still dusting itself off after construction. Earlier this week and ahead of the opening, there was some dust to be swept aside. The siren of construction equipment backing up whined outside, while inside, the illustration of the 19 states were not yet printed on a large map.

Not to worry, said Alan DiPerna, who led media tours. "If Mike Fox has to climb up there and paint it on himself, it will get done."

Western Spirit: Scottsdale's Museum of the West

The $11.4 million, 43,000 square-foot museum debuts today. The building is owned by the city of Scottsdale and will feature rotating exhibitions of Western art and cultural treasures on loan from collectors and institutions.

Hours: 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday; 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday. Late hours for Scottsdale ArtWalk on Thursdays, 9:30 a.m to 9 p.m. Closed Mondays.

Location: 3830 N. Marshall Way, Scottsdale.

Admission: $13, adults, $8 children.

Details: 480-686-9539, scottsdalemuseumwest.org.

Opening exhibitions of Scottsdale's Museum of the West

- "Inspirational Journey: The Story of Lewis and Clark Featuring the Artwork of Charles Fritz."

- "Process and Materiality: The Bronze Artistry of John Coleman with Erik Petersen."

- "Fine Art of the American West: People and Places, featuring a diverse and engaging selection of works by leading Western artists."

- "The A.P. Hays Spirit of the West Collection, featuring saddles, spurs and other quintessentially Western items."