Pinball mavens spring plan for Alameda library site

Michael Schiess (left) and Michael Sturtz inside the Carnegie Library in Alameda, which they plan to turn into the Smithsonian of pinball, once they raise funds to pay for the project. Michael Schiess (left) and Michael Sturtz inside the Carnegie Library in Alameda, which they plan to turn into the Smithsonian of pinball, once they raise funds to pay for the project. Photo: Peter Hartlaub, The Chronicle Photo: Peter Hartlaub, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 4 Caption Close Pinball mavens spring plan for Alameda library site 1 / 4 Back to Gallery

The 111-year-old Carnegie Library in Alameda is eerily silent these days, even for a place that was built with quiet study in mind.

Founders of the Pacific Pinball Museum are hoping to change that, recently announcing intentions to turn the empty building into their Smithsonian of pinball, a sprawling museum and restaurant with a speakeasy feel in the basement. Working with the city's blessing, they hope to raise $750,000 in the short term - and at least $3.5 million overall - to revive an architectural gem that has been closed to the public since 1998.

Pacific Pinball Museum founder Michael Schiess wants the space to be a museum first and an arcade second.

"I don't want to overcrowd it," Schiess says. "There's going to be a lot of room to properly display these machines. There will be a lot of room for educational materials. A lot of room for art."

It would be the final step in an impressive journey for the museum, which started in the early 2000s with Schiess and friends renting space on Webster Street in Alameda to display a handful of pinball machines and taking donations in a coffee can. Museum supporters have since expanded that space at least twice, founded the Pacific Pinball Exposition and acquired some historic collections.

But the goal was always to find a permanent home that could double as an event space, have room to display hundreds of machines and explain the history of pinball. After the Alameda Naval Base and the old Exploratorium space in the Palace of Fine Arts didn't work out, the Carnegie Library option arrived, seemingly out of nowhere.

"The city proposed it," Schiess says. "They want to work with us."

The library was finished in 1902, one of more than 2,500 built with funding from industrialist Andrew Carnegie. It closed in part because of Americans with Disabilities Act shortcomings but is structurally sound with a recent $4 million earthquake retrofitting provided by the city, which now uses the building to store records.

A pinball museum would add to an already lively and unique entertainment district. The Carnegie Library is a block away from the restored Art Deco Alameda Theatre and Cineplex. Subpar, an indoor miniature golf course with Bay Area landmark-themed holes, is around the corner. The High Scores classic arcade game museum opened this year.

During a recent tour of the space, Schiess and museum supporter Michael Sturtz don't even try to contain their enthusiasm. The library has towering Corinthian columns, an open architecture and lovely details, including glass floors on the second-level library stacks. But the greatest asset may be the lighting. With a grid of skylights and huge windows on every side, no additional illumination appears to be needed during daylight hours.

Sturtz founded the nonprofit industrial arts center the Crucible and is now director of ReDesigning Theater in the Stanford design program. Beyond the pinball, Schiess and Sturtz imagine a space for community events, weddings and performances - whether it's music or a silent movie.

"It's such an amazing space. So much you can do here," Sturtz says. "When I tell performers about it, their eyes just get wide. ... You can imagine a choir performance in this space."

It's possible, Schiess says, that most of the new museum's pinball machines - the museum's current playable machines range from 1947 to 2013 - would be in the basement, a brick underworld that fits well with pinball's gambling outlaw history. There's room for a kitchen, and some quirky touches, including a brick-lined hidey-hole once used to fumigate books.

Outbuildings that come with the deal could be used for administrative offices and classes. Schiess is a consultant with the Exploratorium and regularly travels to local schools using pinball to teach about art and science.

Along with the ADA changes, the space needs an electrical overhaul, plumbing and innumerable cosmetic upgrades. The unique space has unique problems - it will probably need multiple sets of sprinklers, including a set in the enormous empty attic, which is buttressed by a lumber mill's worth of old-growth wood.

The museum's supporters need to raise large sums of money - the museum's fundraising account for a new home has $30,000 - but they seem undeterred. Sturtz and Schiess point to other Bay Area success stories, including the Fox Theater in Oakland and the Craneway Pavilion in Richmond.

"There are some cool old buildings that have come back to life," Sturtz says. "There's no reason this can't happen."

Online: More information about the Pacific Pinball Museum and the group's Carnegie Library fundraising campaign is available at www.pacificpinball.org.