The Texas Music Museum is asking the city for help finding a new home

The city may soon consider support for the nonprofit Texas Music Museum in East Austin, including finding a new location for the facility, which is in danger of losing its home on East 11th Street.

On Monday, the Music Commission heard a presentation from Clay Shorkey, president and custodian of the museum's thousands of artifacts and exhibits that reflect more than 100 years of musical history across Texas. Shorkey, a retired University of Texas social work professor who said he pays the museum's rent with his Social Security benefits, runs the facility with a handful of volunteers and said it desperately needs a larger, air-conditioned space that can better attract visitors.

“I don’t think that’s going to happen tomorrow if we get a high-end home, but we definitely need a lot more space,” he said, noting that the existing facility has 3,000 square feet of display space and about 1,000 square feet of storage space . “We have enough to have a wonderful big museum… and we have the files and the photos and the artifacts and so on. We want you to try to help us make Austin a real music capital, with kind of a world-class facility that is much better than what we currently have.”

Commissioners expressed support for the city to find ways to support the Texas Music Museum in the short and long term, with funding from the Creative Space Assistance Program as an option to cover rent or major improvements to the current space. The museum also receives funding from cultural contracts, which it uses in part to fund live musical performances at its events.

Longer-term, Commissioner Anne-Charlotte Patterson suggested the idea of ​​using some of the space in the rebuilt Austin Convention Center to house the museum, while others suggested other city real estate holdings as a temporary location until the convention center reopens in 2030.

Ultimately, the group decided to postpone consideration of this item until its June meeting so that a subgroup of commissioners could work with Shorkey and the rest of the Texas Music Museum board to determine the exact space and budget needs and provide the City Council with a specific one Make a request They are less likely to get lost in other priorities and initiatives.

“I would honestly like to take a step back and recommend that we postpone the discussion of possible actions so that no one from the city yells at us,” Commissioner Scott Strickland said, pointing out that the Austin Economic Development Corporation is one of many city entities This could meet the needs of the museum. “It happens all the time that we recommend something and it's a great recommendation and we spend months talking about it… but it just ends up in a box of really good ideas and then no one takes it up.”

While some commissioners suggested using creative space bond money to support the museum, economic development department staff noted that the AEDC has already identified the 14 priority projects that money could potentially be used for.

In 2017, there was significant push at the state level to build a state music museum in the Capitol complex north of the State Capitol. The Texas Music Museum was among dozens of groups from across the state that took part in the effort, which appeared to have the full support and funding of the Legislature, but over the objections of a handful of other music museums across the state, which called it a state music , failed The facility would reduce its attractiveness and business interest for tourists.

The photo is made available via a Creative Commons license.

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Posted in: Austin, District 1