{"id":941,"date":"2009-08-20T12:02:20","date_gmt":"2009-08-20T19:02:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp\/2009\/08\/the_seattle_art_museum_has\/"},"modified":"2009-08-20T12:02:20","modified_gmt":"2009-08-20T19:02:20","slug":"the_seattle_art_museum_has","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/2009\/08\/the_seattle_art_museum_has.html","title":{"rendered":"Seattle Art Museum cuts back"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Seattle Art Museum<\/a> cut 17 staff members earlier this year,
\nfrom a staff of 240. Every department is affected, although no curators
\nwere eliminated. SAM has also cut its hours. Beginning in September, it
\nwill be closed Tuesdays as well as Mondays. Exhibitions have been
\nextended, which means fewer new shows on the schedule. <\/p>\n

Maybe that’s a good thing. The installation crew is now down to the size it was before the 2007 expansion, which tripled exhibition space. That’s not counting installation at the Olympic Sculpture Park, which also opened in 2007.<\/p>\n

Attendance remains strong, over projections in 2009. <\/p>\n

The
\nmuseum’s fiscal year 2009 budget is $27 million. The 2010 budget is projected to be
\n$23,000<\/strike> $23 million. SAM does not foresee a deficit this year. Given the economy,
\nSAM would be in fine shape were it not for the Washington Mutual
\ndebacle.<\/p>\n

Update:<\/b> SAM corrected one of the figures it originally gave me. The museum ultimately cut its 2009 budget to $25 million.<\/p>\n


\nSAM leased space to WaMu, generating $5.9 million for
\nthe museum annually. After WaMu failed and Chase Bank took it over,
\nChase gave SAM $10 million spread out over 5 years, although it wasn’t
\ncontractually obligated to pay anything at all.<\/p>\n

That means on
\ntop of the financial hardships facing every museum in the country, SAM
\nhas its own additional income hole to fill. That hole is not related to
\nthe annual budget, says Nicole Griffin, museum spokeswoman. All the money from the lease went to pay
\noff its debt
\nfrom the expansion, which is $59 million. That money still has to be paid and has to come from somewhere.<\/p>\n

SAM financed its 2007 expansion by renting out 240,000 square feet of
\noffice space to WaMu. SAM and WaMu shared the block bounded by First
\nand Second avenues and Union and University streets downtown. Each
\noccupied and owned a separate building designed by different architects
\n(NBBJ for the defunct WaMu; Brad Cloepfil for SAM, an expansion on
\nRobert Venturi’s original building).<\/p>\n

WaMu owned the top four floors and rented eight floors in Cloepfil’s
\n16-floor-high museum expansion, which is next door to WaMu’s own tower.
\nSAM occupies four floors in its new building. Eventually, it will
\noccupy 12 floors, which, including Venturi’s original 150,00 square
\nfeet, will add up to 450,000 square feet. SAM has hired Matthew Griffin, a developer with the Pine Street Group,
\nto find a new tenant. <\/p>\n

So far, no takers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Seattle Art Museum cut 17 staff members earlier this year, from a staff of 240. Every department is affected, although no curators were eliminated. SAM has also cut its hours. Beginning in September, it will be closed Tuesdays as well as Mondays. Exhibitions have been extended, which means fewer new shows on the schedule. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-941","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=941"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/941\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}