Zukowski, of Irvine, Calif., is a marketing communications professional.

The proposed design for the new Art Museum of Western Virginia is going to need some selling. As a resident of Southern California who has regularly visited Roanoke for the past 25 years, I see this project as representing a radical departure for a very traditional city and one that will certainly engender confusion and controversy.

It is a project that needs to take a cue from the White House. Like the president's Social Security plan, it will need to be sold.

The architect, Los Angeles-based Randall Stout, has been proclaimed as a future star, and his designs ensure that he gets noticed. And, whether you love it or hate it, the art museum will be noticeably disharmonious with its surroundings in downtown Roanoke.

The stainless-steel Frank Gehry-designed Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles is a similarly discordant structure and was a source of contention during its long construction phase. The very nontraditional Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, by Pritzker Prize winning architect Rafael Moneo, also inspired dissension and debate.

It remains to be seen whether Stout is in the class of Gehry or Moneo, and thus able to pull off this audacious architectural design. But, the attention these outlandish structures generate lives on well after they are built, attracting visitors and helping to revitalize surrounding areas.

This has certainly been true in Los Angeles: One can't help but gawk at the Disney Concert Hall, and the new cathedral has become both a civic and spiritual landmark. Both have drawn more tourists and increased pedestrian traffic in this part of our downtown.

But, the next few years may be rough.

As a member of the Board of Advisors to Cardinal Mahony, I was responsible for the communications plan for the $160 million cathedral project. We didn't come away without a few scrapes and bruises, but the communications strategy we developed and implemented added to the ultimate success of the project.

We recognized that any public space is made whole only by those who come to it and use it. For the proposed art museum to be a truly vibrant attraction in Western Virginia, a post-completion outreach program needs to be in place even before ground is broken. For example, involving schoolchildren and local artists now will make the museum a home for those members of the community when it is fully realized.

The museum's directors will need to reach out beyond local business leaders to the larger Roanoke community. They must meet with community organizations and provide a wealth of information on the design, construction and progress of the art museum.

We were successful in our outreach for the cathedral because we were open and forthright about the difficulties and challenges we faced as well as the successes of the project.

Museum leaders must also recognize that everyone in the Roanoke Valley is a stakeholder in this project. For the cathedral, we involved citizens all along the way, with regular communications from the top and with community events at major milestones.

No communications strategy has value unless there is substance behind it. The Getty Museum in Los Angeles attracts many visitors. It is a stunning space where the viewpoint from any exterior location forms a perfect picture postcard and where views of the Santa Monica Mountains, the Pacific Ocean and the Los Angeles basin are unforgettable. But, its limited and uninspired collection leaves visitors and art critics disappointed.

Even as the myriad details of the construction take over their time, it will be equally important for the museum's directors to add to and enhance their current collection if they hope to attract a sustaining and far-reaching interest in the museum.

The Art Museum of Western Virginia can become a magnet for visitors to Roanoke and, over the next few years, will be a magnet for civic debate. It is up to the museum's directors to frame that debate.