Even as financially strapped UC Berkeley is preparing to raise tuition 8 percent next fall, it has pledged to spend as much as $20 million in campus funds to help build a $96 million art museum.
Just where $20 million will come from, however, remains unclear - with campus spokesman Dan Mogulof saying only that it will depend on what pot of money is available when the time comes.
Mogulof insisted, however, that there will be "no tuition, no student registration fees and no state-allocated funds used."
It's been more than a decade since the 40-year-old, bunker-like UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive on Bancroft Way was declared seismically unsound.
In 2001, the university dismissed the idea of a $70 million retrofit as being more costly than it was worth.
Instead, officials decided to build a replacement museum on a university-owned site in downtown Berkeley, and four years ago picked hot-shot Japanese architect Toyo Ito in hopes of attracting major donors.
However, as the economy tanked, so did the museum's fortunes.
When the museum found itself $100 million short of its fundraising goal, planners said goodbye to the $11.8 million they'd already spent - and opted for a more modest makeover of the old UC printing plant on Oxford Street.
The problem is, the university has pledges for only about half the $96 million needed to build and furnish the new museum.
And while UC Berkeley Vice Chancellor Frank Yeary insists the university has a robust fundraising effort in place, last spring he told the UC regents that the school was prepared to kick in as much as $20 million if donations came up short.
Campus officials cite a range of possible funding sources - everything from investment and endowment income to various campus programs that generate revenue.
"Ideally, money for such an activity would be primarily from private philanthropic sources," Academic Senate Chair Fiona Doyle said when asked about the university's $20 million pledge.
But then Doyle, who is an engineer, added, "I don't feel it's my place to tell (art department) colleagues ... that their own intellectual areas aren't as valued as others. ... I would need a lot more information to comment."
Meanwhile: The San Francisco Asian Art Museum is vowing to keep its doors open, despite the absence of a deal to end a financial crisis that has threatened to send the Civic Center institution into bankruptcy.
A letter of credit from lender JPMorgan Chase backing the museum's $120 million loan is set to expire Dec. 21. If that happens, the Asian Art's loan payments could skyrocket beyond the museum's ability to pay and its insurer could be hit with tens of millions in losses.
City officials plan to meet with all the parties this week to try to break the impasse.
"We are working to get this resolved," Mark McLoughlin, the Asian Art's chief finance and operating officer, said Friday. "The museum is not contemplating anything other than staying open for business and a vibrant future."
Let's hope so.
This article is from: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/11/21/BA4N1GETOH.DTL#ixzz16gQNqtgc
No comments:
Post a Comment