Despite shortfalls in their fundraising goals, and concern about where promised city support will come from, the board of the Metropolitan Kansas City Performing Arts Center has voted to move forward with the proposed $326 million multi-venue arts complex. Groundbreaking is in October, construction starts in December, then it’s full speed ahead for an opening in Fall 2009.
The dramatic and iconic design by Moshe Safdie and Associates (see a 2002 overview of the project here) is just the latest in a series of mega-multi-hundred-million cultural facilities designed to refocus energy downtown, and bolster the professional arts in their cities. By any measure, these are massive projects, requiring not just Herculean capital fundraising for their construction, but multiple millions in additional annual operating subsidy for decades to come.
Dallas ($275 million), Miami ($484 million, and counting), and Madison ($205 million), are other current examples of the trend.
Big and audacious goals are good things. Big cultural buildings may be good things, as well. But one of these days, we’ll need to assess the impact of these massive infusions of granite, steel, and glass on the delicate cultural and community ecosystems that surround them.
While we do indeed want our arts groups to perform in good facilities, it is worth noting that $326 million would cover the entire budget of the Kansas City Symphony for 35 years. More to the point, the income from a $326 million endowment would more that pay the entire annual budget of both the Kansas City Symphony and the Lyric Opera of Kansas City with plenty left over for other things.
It’s very interesting to see the willingness of communities to invest in facilities versus the on-field product, so to speak.
And let’s not forget Philadelphia in all this. The Kimmel Center may be the granddaddy of all the multi-hundred-million-dollar PACs, and no one really knows how that story will end yet. It’s certainly not an unqualified success (for either the orchestra or the city), but nor is it a failure on most levels. It’ll probably take another decade before we know how these multi-purpose facilities will truly shake out, but I have to say that, as a lifelong sports fan who has watched the rise and fall of the multipurpose sports facility, I’m very glad that the orchestra I play in owns it’s own hall, and isn’t sharing time with every other cultural band in town.
Thrasymachus’s point about other uses for the money is well taken, but it’s also a known fact that raising money for a pretty new building is a lot easier than an endowment drive. After all, it’s hard to put anyone’s name on a chunk of the endowment…