D-C's Newseum Facing Uncertain Future

Two months shy of its 10th anniversary in a glass-and-steel showpiece on Washington’s most prestigious thoroughfare, executives at the struggling Newseum will meet Thursday with a top real estate firm to explore options that include selling their building or moving to another location.

The previously undisclosed talks with officials from the international firm Eastdil Secured — which were confirmed by museum management after it was contacted by The Washington Post — are the latest sign of uncertainty at an institution that has been swamped in debt and roiled by leadership shake-ups.

The museum’s financial woes, including lackluster fundraising and the weight of its primary benefactor’s $300 million debt burden, have long prompted speculation that it would be forced to leave its grand location on Pennsylvania Avenue, just blocks from the Capitol, or close altogether. But Chief Operating Officer Scott Williams insisted in an interview Wednesday that its biggest supporter, the Freedom Forum, intends to keep the museum alive.

“The plan is to continue to have the Newseum in some capacity, here or perhaps elsewhere,” Williams said.

The survival of the Newseum — which charges one of the city’s highest museum entrance fees at up to almost $25 per person — has long been in doubt as it has sought to compete for visitors and donors in a capital awash in free cultural institutions. In 2016, the museum operated at a substantial loss, spending $8.2 million more than the $55.7 million in revenue it generated, according to previously unreported tax documents. That was more than triple the shortfall from the previous year.