It may not be a matter of Feasibility Studies vs. Adaptive Reuse, because a feasibility study may result in Adaptive Reuse being the best choice for your needs.  Feasibilities studies can tell you anything you want to know (including what you want to know and what you don't want to know), it just depends on what parameters you set up.  In one case I know of, the feasibility study told us what was desired by the community and what would work within that community.  In another case I'm involved with, we decided against a feasibility study (so far) because we decided to proceed regardless of what a study would tell us.  In this second case, we already knew that the community was saturated with museums, but we decided that the cause deserved our best effort anyway, regardless of whether we succeed or not.  If done properly, by museum consultants who know what they're doing, feasibility studies will give you an accurate assessment of community needs and available resources.  That is, they will tell you something about the kind of content the visitor will expect to see.  They will also tell you what is possible with the resources you have or expect to have.  Complex feasibility studies can take months and cost tens of thousands of dollars.  Or they can take weeks and cost a few thousand dollars.  It depends on how involved the process and who is conducting the study.  

Jeff Tenuth 
Indiana State Museum
Indianapolis, Indiana 

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