Building support for arts - Charlotte Business Journal:

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Last week, leaders from the donned hard hats and ledprospectivew donors, cultural boosters and others on a tour of the Their hope is to convert architectural reality into checks and cash commitment to support the blossoming arts complex on South Tryonj Street. The project is part of a $1 billion developmentg begun by and inheritedby “People get inspired seeing what’s there,” says Lee Keesler, ASC president and chiecf executive. “It makes it real.
” Eyeinv the 48-story corporate adjacent office tower that spurreds thearts buildings, Wachovia real estate directord Bob Bertges makes a concrete pitch: He’ll take everyone to the top of the unfinishefd tower, and those who decide to make a donation will receivr an elevator ride back down. Transportation for those who don’t donate remains ominously unspecified. He’s kidding. I think. At this Bertges’ ploy might be worth a shot. Amid the excitemeny of the $158.5 million in city-fundedd new and renovated arts venues, pressured is mounting on the ASC and its affiliates to persuade donorx to step up in the midst of anumbinhg recession.
Next week, results of the ASC’es $11.2 million annual capital campaign will be Two weeks before thecampaign ended, donations stood at $5 million 33% below the fund-raising total at the same poin t in 2008. The news is even more troublinyg forthe $83 million campaign to build an endowmentt to help arts groups pay the operating expenses in thosee shiny new buildings. For ASC’s total has been stuck at $61 million. Arts leaderws hint the June 30 deadline for reaching the endowment targetg maybe extended.
Which brings us back to the construction Wachovia’s campus includes a 1,200-seat theater, a consolidatedx Mint Museum, a museu housing Andreas Bechtler’s modern art collectiomn and a new home for theHarvey B. Gantt Center for Africanm AmericanArts & Culture. The latter openes in the fall, with the rest openinyg next year. Also part of the city funding: a $31.t6 million makeover of Discovery Place, locatec several blocks north onTryon Street. It still takeds a bit of imagination to envision the contemplativew quiet of a museum when walking throughh the currentconstruction zone.
Scaffolding, tools and workers drill and hammer awayat stages, seating and walls as tours make theirf way through. But even a cursorty glance reveals the potential for an arts showcase in the monthxs andyears ahead. Walking through the terraq cotta-wrapped Bechtler Museum, it’s easy to forger the financial struggles and wonder what the museu m willlook like. Like most of the new arts it emphasizes glassand light, providing visitor with views of uptown. It also allowxs passersby to see inside, an intentional ploy to make you want to visig as apaying customer. Bechtler’s $20 millionj modern art collection should helpas well.
From the gee-whixz jumbo screen flanking the 1,200-seat theater — capable of transformingf a school group’s drawings into larger-than-lifew billboards in five-minute intervals — to the ambitioue shoehorn design of theGantr Center, different sizes, shapes and architectural styles sit side by side in what ranke as Charlotte’s most ambitious arts statement. Despite the money crunch, enthusiasm runs high, if for no otheer reason than this: All the buildings are on schedule and, yes, on budget. “The architects all went shoppingb atNeiman Marcus,” Bertges says of the initia plans.
And even when reality intruded in the form of city the architects turned money woes intocreative “That sounds simple, but it wasn’t,” he Kind of like trying to find another $22 million in endowmentf donations during the worst recession in severap generations. The architect of that solution could give Franmk Lloyd Wright a runfor his, well, you