The Huntington Beach International Surf Museum will relocate to the city’s Main Street library branch, a move that officials say will boost foot traffic and create a “cultural hub” downtown.
A united City Council agreed Tuesday, March 3, to a license agreement for the museum to take over underused space at the 9,475-square-foot public library. Councilmember Pat Burns was absent.
The library’s 20-foot-tall walls will let the museum mount more of its collection of vintage surfboards — a display that its current Olive Avenue location couldn’t accommodate.
Under the license agreement, the surf museum will share about 3,600 square feet with the library and have about 1,200 square feed to use for its storage, a research library, a gift shop and office space. The library will keep 4,000 square feet for tis exclusive use
The museum will pay the city $500 per month in base rent. The city can terminate the agreement with a 60-day notice.
The city began exploring consolidation with the surf museum last July, arguing that the merger could establish a “cohesive cultural district” on Main Street, while celebrating more than a century of surf history in town. The museum has outgrown its Olive Avenue facility, where it’s been since 1990, officials said.
The location’s modest size and low ceilings have made it difficult to display larger and more significant surfboards, some dating back to the 1930s, according to a report prepared by city staff. Moreover, staffers said a collection of historic documents, publications and surf culture artifacts are not accessible to the public because of a lack of space.
Other attempts to relocate the museum to a bigger space never panned out, including a 2002 plan to raise $6 million to take over a 20,000-square-foot building along Pacific Coast Highway.
The surf museum was founded in 1987 by Natalie Kotsch. She was a Canadian transplant who fell in love with surf culture when she moved to Huntington Beach and envisioned a place where its art and memorabilia could be shared. Kotsch died in 2014.
Mayor Casey McKeon said collaboration opportunities between the famed museum and the Huntington Beach Art Center across the street could bolster foot traffic on Main Street, while increasing visibility of the city’s surf culture and history.
“We want to get ready for the US Open (of Surfing) this summer. We want to get the artifacts in to show,” McKeon said. “It just makes a lot of sense to fuse the two together.”
Councilmember Andrew Gruel called the fusion of the library with the surf museum a cost-effective way to drive tourism. He also pushed back on criticism that the rent for the museum is too low.
“We’re decreasing costs by sharing resources as well,” Gruel said. “On the one hand, we can’t say that we want to provide free services for residents and on the other hand say we’re not jamming them enough, we’re not charging them enough.”
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