Crystal Bridges Museum Exceeds Expectations in First Year

By all accounts, the first year of Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art was a highly successful one, and it wasn’t bad for the city it calls home either.

Alice Walton’s $800 million museum in Bentonville, where her father founded what became the world’s largest retailer, notched its one-year anniversary Nov. 11. Before long, Wal-Mart Stores Inc.’s corporate headquarters might play second fiddle to the museum, whose impact on both the international art world and Bentonville itself has been substantial.

Diane Carroll, media relations manager for Crystal Bridges, said the public and critical response to the museum has been universally positive. Attendance far exceeded initial projections of 225,000 visitors for the first year. The final number was 604,000, an average of more than 11,000 per week.

“We didn’t have a good indicator of what to expect,” Carroll said. “There was not an extremely relevant benchmark for opening a museum in our region. But we’ve been overwhelmed with the response.”

Carroll said the museum’s first-year visitors mostly have come from Arkansas (about 70 percent) and the rest from across the U.S. and even around the world. A large portion of that 30 percent visited from states that border Arkansas, she said.

Museum memberships also have surpassed expectations. Crystal Bridges compiled 7,514 member households in its first year, more than double its goal of 3,000. Memberships range from student ($35 annually) to benefactor ($5,000).

Those museum visitors and members are taking in Bentonville as well, especially its transformed downtown square. While Bentonville already buzzed with growth and downtown revitalization, the museum has added fuel to the fire.

Daniel Hintz, executive director of the civic group Downtown Bentonville Inc., said the city’s hospitality tax revenue, which applies to food and lodging, has increased dramatically on the square over the past two years. It grew by 73 percent from 2010 to 2011, and is up another 42 percent so far this year.

The new 21c Museum Hotel is set to open the first quarter of 2013 and the continued influx of shops and restaurants in and around the square should boost those numbers even more. At roughly 35,000 residents, Bentonville is adding a cosmopolitan feel to its small-town charm, thanks in large part to the museum.

“It’s fascinating how the town has changed, all for the good,” said Abby Kiefer, founder of Red Clay, a Bentonville-based startup that crowd-sources design concepts.

Kiefer moved to Bentonville from San Francisco with her husband in 2010, when his work required him to be closer to Wal-Mart. Eventually, his work took him back to California, but Red Clay maintains its Bentonville corporate office and Kiefer splits time between Northwest Arkansas and the Bay Area.

Carroll said the museum isn’t releasing a goal as far as visitors for 2013, but is “just hoping to maintain the momentum we have going.”

To that end, Crystal Bridges will continue to offer “a robust array of exhibitions and public programming,” director of communication Laura Jacobs said. Jacobs also indicated the museum will expand program offerings for every age group, including a summer camp for kids, and an “ambitious” lecture series.

Additional membership benefits are in the works, too.

Rob Keys of the Northwest Arkansas Business Journal contributed to this report.