In the midst of Tuesday’s East Lansing City Council work session items, one bullet point on this week’s agenda stuck out among the others: the discussion regarding submitting a proposal to the MSU Museum to lease the nearly century-old Crystal carousel within the city.
Although council members agreed the idea of housing the vintage carousel could be a unique and exciting asset to the community, the overwhelming concerns of cost and logistics rendered the project out of the question for the city alone.
“The carousel sounds like it could be a lot of fun but, candidly, could be expensive,” Parks, Recreation and Arts Director Tim McCaffrey said.
The structure that would cover the attraction could potentially cost more than $500,000, without taking routine maintenance, inspections and multiple other expenses into account, as well as the transportation of the individual parts of the carousel from their current storage place in Marion, Ohio.
In order to keep the project a possibility for the city, council decided to open it up to private, interested donors and developers to help pay for a significant portion of the upkeep and preparations for the carousel.
Without the help of a third party, City Manager George Lahanas said the costs of the carousel are not within the boundaries of the current city budget.
Because of a tight Dec. 1 deadline for submissions, organizing all of the information necessary for the lease and fundraising for the attraction would be challenging, Mayor Pro Tem Nathan Triplett said.
“If nobody comes forward, we understand it’s a lot of money,” Mayor Diane Goddeeris said.
“We want to at least let the public know that this is a possibility. We could be shutting a door that should be opened.”
Even if East Lansing doesn’t wind up acquiring the carousel, MSU Museum Director Gary Morgan said in an email interview the MSU Museum wants to keep the vintage carnival ride in the state of Michigan.
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