THE ESTABLISHMENT OF a national Great Lakes maritime museum in Toledo, Ohio moved closer to reality when the Toledo-Lucas County Port Authority Board of Directors approved a Memorandum of Understanding to lease space in the port-owned Toledo Maritime Center.

“Our goal is to create the Smithsonian of Great Lakes history,” said Paul C. LaMarre III, the port authority’s Manager of Maritime Affairs. The project could cost nearly $3 million, more than $1 million of which would come from the Ohio Cultural Facilities Commission.

Under the plan, the Great Lakes Historical Society Maritime Museum, currently located in Vermilion, Ohio, would move into the facility. Along with displaying maritime exhibits, the museum would manage Toledo’s museum ship Willis B. Boyer, which would be renovated, restored to its original name of Col. James M. Schoonmaker and moved to a permanent berth adjacent to the museum building.

The agreement allows the historical society to occupy 12,278 square feet at the maritime center for $1 per year, plus half of all ticket revenue exceeding $700,000 in a given year for an initial term of 25 years. The agreement also commits the historical society to marketing the maritime center to potential operators of a ferry service, the official purpose for which the port authority obtained federal grants covering $2.6 million of the building’s $3.2 million cost.

LaMarre said funding is now in place for the $350,000 cost of dry-docking the Boyer and restoring it to its original appearance. The $1.5 million estimated cost of dredging the maritime center slip that the Boyer would occupy remains unfunded and will likely be the subject of a fund-raising campaign.

The goal is to have the complex open by May 2011, in time to celebrate the June 1, 2011 centennial of the vessel’s christening and launch as the then-largest bulk freighter in the world.

—Roger LeLievre