The importance of pre-planning is an understatement

Photographer: Susan Biddle /The Washington Post. John Paul II Cultural Center, a museum/tribute to the late pope is having financial difficulties. Msgr. William Kerr, executive director, shows the museum. Outside the museum is a statue of Pope John Paul.

These days my local neighborhood efforts are centered in Brookland, where I hope to open a business, among other things. One of the cultural-tourism assets in that neighborhood is the John Paul II Cultural Center, "which hasn't been as successful as the founders would have liked."

This is an issue of special interest in Detroit, because the center was built in part by loans from the local Catholic Church, the Archdiocese of Detroit. There is an article about this, "Maida stands by $17M loan--Cardinal: Papal center funds weren't poorly spent," in today's Detroit News.

I think there is a lot that can be done to improve the success of this center, as well as the possibility to leverage the various cultural assets in Greater Brookland for the good of the neighborhood and the strengthening of the commercial district.

One of the things on my to do list is to organize a monthly meeting of the organizations-assets to start to begin working together to promote and cross-promote their activities.

In any case, faith alone isn't enough to make projects such as these successful.

Also see this article from the Post, "DC Papal Museum Struggles For Financial Foothold, Focus," as well as the Wikipedia entry, which includes links to a variety of articles on the subject.

Index Keywords: cultural-heritage-tourism