The Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk (formerly Maritime Center) is an aquarium located in the South Norwalk (or "SoNo") section of Norwalk, Connecticut.
The aquarium features harbor seals, river otters, sharks, jellyfish, loggerhead turtles, and hundreds of other animals living in re-creations of their natural Long Island Sound habitats. Three touch-tanks feature stingrays, nurse sharks, crabs, sea stars, moon jellyfish and other coastal creatures.
In addition to its exhibits, The Maritime Aquarium offers educational programs, year-round cruises on its 64-foot research vessel R/V Spirit of the Sound, special events and camps.
Mission
The Maritime Aquarium inspires people of all ages to appreciate and protect the Long Island Sound ecosystem and the global environment through living exhibits, marine science, and environmental education.
Attendance
The Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk is one of Connecticut's top tourist attractions. Annual attendance averages 500,000 visitors, about 100,000 of whom are from New York state. The Maritime Aquarium's estimated statewide economic impact is almost $42 million; it contributes approximately $25 million to Norwalk's economy every year.
The aquarium's budget for the 2006-2007 fiscal year was about $10.7 million. More than $4 million came in from admissions, with 36 percent coming from out-of-state visitors. Demonstrating increasing regional appeal, out-of-state attendance revenue has increased 55% since 2002.
Additional revenues are generated from educational programming fees, the gift shop, catering, business dinners, other events such as weddings, and donations. The state gave it a grant of $675,000 to promote tourism in 2007.
History
The "Maritime Center" opened July 16, 1988. The name was changed to the "Maritime Aquarium" in July 1996 to emphasize the live animals featured there.
It first opened by renovating a former 1860s iron works factory into an IMAX theater. Visitors, as they walk past the Ray Touch Pool toward the Marine Lab, still tread on the original wood floors (under original wood beams) of the iron works. Occupying approximately 100,000 gross square feet, the first animal exhibits included harbor seals, Open Ocean and Touch Tank.
The cultural section of the aquarium originally explored boat building and human exploration of the sea, but the boat-building activities were eliminated in early 2007. In the final seven years of its 19-year run, the boat-building program constructed about 500 boats, and 20,000 children took part in classes that created more than 5,000 model boats, but aquarium officials said the shop only served three to five percent of patrons.
The boat-building shop was replaced with a new Marine Lab, with baby seahorses, jellyfish, and other new animals, as well as information on aquaculture, sustainable seafood, and responsible home aquarium keeping.