![]() Officials were forecasting only about 800,000 in attendance for 2021, so they're taking the year's 50% increase over that number, as well as other indicators such as supercharged gift shop sales and a return to pre-pandemic attendance levels in December, as positive signs of public demand. Shedd, like its peer institutions, received significant help from federal COVID relief funds: $4.9 million in Paycheck Protection Program money in 2020 and $10 million from the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant program in 2021, plus a $3.8 million Employee Retention Tax Credit, according to the aquarium and public databases.Īttendance figures for 2021, while still awaiting final tallies, show the aquarium bouncing back to an estimated 1.275 million visitors, said the spokesman, despite almost one month of closure (in January) and capacity restrictions into June. Attendance, which had been running about 1.9 million per year, plummeted to 544,000 in 2020, and the number of full-time staff dropped from 382 in early 2020 to 323 at most recent count, a spokesman said. The nonprofit's revenue dropped some $23 million that year, Coughlin said, more than a third of its $62 million annual budget. The pandemic in 2020 forced almost six months of closures at the Shedd and other leading cultural institutions. The Tuesday announcement, which follows a planning process that began shortly after Coughlin took over from longtime CEO Ted Beattie in mid-2016, looks to be a sign of optimism about the institution's ability to bounce back from COVID-19. "It also really takes learning and science and brings it into the center of the experience," Curran added, "literally bringing them up from the basement." When the building reconstruction is finished, said Meghan Curran, chief marketing and experience officer, "where each of the galleries look really similar at this moment, they'll all look very different and have very different experiences that bring kind of the animal biology forward." Other key plan components include expanding the aquarium's outreach into the Chicago community enhancing its on-site animal care and scientific research in the Bahamas, Florida and the Midwest and, amid the building changes, moving its "Learning Commons" public-science interaction space onto the main floor entry hall, where the gift shop currently is. ![]() "I think our Centennial Commitment helps very much sort of bridge that human-animal empathy gap and that nature gap that is fueling this biodiversity and climate crisis." "We have to build empathy for animals, because people will not save what they do not know," Coughlin said. The animal gallery changes, scheduled to take place in stages primarily from 2023 through 2026, are part of an overall $500 million "Centennial Commitment" plan that the Shedd intends to execute between now and its 100th anniversary in 2030. Coughlin called the plan-by a wide measure, the most expensive project her institution has undertaken-a "transformation for the guest experience to meet the needs of that 21st-century learner." ![]()
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