April 4, 2006

Chicago Children's Museum head Peter England delicately pursues a move from Navy Pier to Grant Park

By Charles Storch

Before starting his first day as head of the Chicago Children's Museum, Peter England recalled, "I looked in the mirror and thought, `This is stupid. What right do you have to be coming to this place, which is a museum, which is about children, and you don't even know what they do?' "

Almost five years since then, this former corporate globetrotter may still find children mystifying -- even those three grown ones who are his own -- but neither he nor anyone else questions his suitability to lead this museum. He has helped to restore its finances, improve its appearance and underscore its role in early learning.

But all this has been child's play compared with what the museum's president and chief executive must now accomplish.

The museum is considering moving from its anchor position at hectic Navy Pier to a lightly traveled but prized site in north Grant Park, Daley Bicentennial Plaza. England must reach out to the many constituencies that guard every shrub in "Chicago's front yard" while not losing his footing in dealings with the pier -- a stretch worthy of the game Twister.

Since the museum went public in January with its preliminary proposal for Grant Park, the tall New Zealander with the sandy hair, deep-lined eyes and soft voice -- "I'm often accused of mumbling or speaking in a strange language," he acknowledged -- has been presenting the museum's case before park advocacy and neighborhood organizations and officials of the Chicago Park District, which has jurisdiction over Daley Bicentennial Plaza.

The reception so far has been mixed, all the more reason for England not to give notice at the pier. He has been negotiating with pier management for additional room at the popular lakefront attraction -- space the museum claims is its by right and should already be occupying. Though both sides contend talks have been amicable, their differing views on the use of the space suggest some tension.

"They have a lease to stay, and we are happy to have them stay," said Leticia Peralta Davis, chief executive of the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority, the state-city agency known as McPier that oversees the pier. "If their feasibility studies determine they would be better off somewhere else, we would be happy to accommodate them however we could."

At one time, the concerns of a midsize Midwest museum would have had no importance to England.

Born 61 years ago in Christchurch, New Zealand, where his parents ran a country grocery store, he roamed the world in a 33-year career with Unilever, the Anglo-Dutch consumer products giant. He held increasingly prominent positions in various Unilever personal products lines, lastly as president and chief executive of the Elizabeth Arden prestige cosmetics and fragrances unit.

In his five years at Arden, he was credited with restoring profits and brand image. But Unilever reportedly was impatient with the progress and decided to divest Arden. England resigned in January 2000, a year before Arden was sold.

At Unilever, he became friends with Ron Gidwitz, who in 1996 had followed his family-controlled Chicago firm, Helene Curtis Industries Inc., into the Unilever fold, but stayed only two years.

"He and I used to sit in the same Unilever meetings," England recalled. "He used to tease the senior management of Unilever in an extraordinary way."

Good sense of humor

During a break from his recent, failed bid for the GOP nomination for Illinois governor, Gidwitz said of those meetings, "If I thought things were wrong, I would speak my mind. Peter was quite good. Very politic, in the sense he wasn't bombastic. He has a good sense of humor, in an understated way."

After Unilever, England, his wife, Carol, and their son lived for 18 months in Australia. From there, they moved to Chicago, where they had only visited before but where their two daughters were living.

"We decided to reunite the family in Chicago," he said.

When a friend suggested him for the CEO's job at the Children's Museum, he resisted. But he met with its board and was won over -- although the $185,000-a-year compensation was, for him, quite modest.

"Probably my motives at the beginning were a little selfish, a way of introducing myself to Chicago," he said. "Since then, I've developed a real feeling of passion for this place."

Under his watch, the museum has reversed years of operating deficits and found new sponsors for exhibits. It also collaborated with early-learning experts to reformulate its mission, putting more emphasis on linking learning and play and on involving parents in their child's play-learning experience.

Dolores Kohl Kaplan, founder and former head of the Kohl Children's Museum -- which last year moved from Wilmette to larger quarters in Glenview -- said England successfully leveraged "his highly developed skills from the business world into his work at the Chicago Children's Museum."

As did Kohl's, England's museum felt the need for more room to fulfill its ambitions. The museum, which was founded in 1982, had relocated to Navy Pier in 1995, signing a 99-year lease at a token $1 a year. But with its attendance growing to about 500,000 a year, the museum at times felt squeezed in its 57,000 square feet there.

According to England, the museum in 2004 exercised an option in its lease to assume 20,000 square feet of nearby space, used by McPier for offices.

Peralta Davis said the museum had submitted plans that called for new exhibits and programs in that space. She said McPier was prepared to relocate its offices so the museum could break ground.

"Then [the museum] wrote us and said, `We don't have the funding secured,' and that they weren't going to do the expansion that we had been working on for about a year's time," she said. "With that notice, we're sort of on hold right now."

But England said he wanted the space primarily for offices and storage, freeing up room in the museum proper for more exhibits and programming, including children's theater. He said the museum was prepared to invest about $31 million in the expansion.

"We were due to break ground last August. Around May of last year, the pier decided that they were looking at the whole plan for the facility and put ours on hold," he said, referring to a proposed pier makeover. "At that stage, we and the board said, `Let's explore other options.'"

Even if the museum decides to leave the pier, it could take years before plans for a building elsewhere were approved and construction completed. Knowing it will be at the pier for a while at least and wanting to use that 20,000 square feet in the interim, the museum must proceed delicately with McPier as it explores other options.

Move to Grant Park

England would not say who first proposed moving to Grant Park, but Gigi Pritzker Pucker, the museum's chairman and a member of the powerful Chicago clan, is believed to have advanced the notion with city and park officials. Daley Bicentennial Plaza is east of Millennium Park, across a pedestrian bridge from the Pritzker Pavilion.

Pritzker Pucker declined to comment.

The museum has been looking at the site of a fieldhouse nestled near East Randolph Drive. With project manager Jones Lang LaSalle, the museum has devised a concept plan for a 100,000 square-foot structure that would burrow into two levels of the Monroe Street parking garage directly below. A glass atrium rising about 45 feet above Randolph would serve as the entrance and help light the three museum floors below.

The museum has proposed building a substitute fieldhouse nearby that would be twice the size of the current one, a 30-year-old structure in need of repair.

Neighborhood and parks groups that have heard the museum's pitch generally like the idea of having such an amenity in the plaza. But they have expressed concern about having such paid-admission activities in the park, attracting additional traffic, replacing fieldhouse programs and relocating a small but heavily used skating rink just outside the fieldhouse.

"I have committed to saving the ice skating rink," vowed Robert O'Neill, president of the Grant Park Conservancy.

England wouldn't project a new museum's cost, saying plans are too preliminary. He said he finds "scary" the prospect of having to raise tens of millions of dollars. Luckily for him, a Pritzker is at his side.

He speaks animatedly of a stand-alone museum, new exhibits and collaborations with the Park District and cultural institutions near the plaza.

"This should be a place of wonder, joy, beauty and magic for children," said England. It is a favorite line for him, but one he credits to a museum patron with a superior aesthetic.

"I'm a New Zealander," said England, all Kiwi modesty. "My idea of culture is a little agriculture."