Art museum officials exult over budget

If at first you don't succeed ...

After years of trying, the Art Museum of Western Virginia finally came up a winner in the General Assembly, which included $2.25 million in its budget proposal for a new art museum building in downtown Roanoke. The budget must now be scrutinized by Gov. Mark Warner.

"I was so psyched," said museum fundraising chair Jenny Taubman, who got the news from museum executive director Georganne Bingham Monday morning. "I'm just so thrilled that the state saw the value of our project."

"I'm very appreciative," said museum board president Heywood Fralin. The money, said Fralin, shows the state recognizes the value of the art museum and other cultural attractions to the Roanoke Valley and to its economic growth.
The museum was the big winner in a budget year that saw the awarding of significant amounts of state money to valley cultural institutions for the first time since 2001. In an improving economic climate, the valley's legislative delegation secured more than $3 million for valley museums, parks and other attractions.

Still, the art museum money was less than project backers had hoped for. In the past, the museum has sought as much as $10 million in state money for a dramatic new building behind Billy's Ritz restaurant, at the entrance to downtown. An IMAX theater has also been proposed as part of the museum project.

Then-Gov. Jim Gilmore put $10 million for a new museum into his budget proposal to the General Assembly in 2001, but the money was later cut. This year, the museum project was originally slated to receive $9.8 million under a state bond package that never made it out of the House of Delegates' appropriations committee.

"We were able to hang on to the $2.25 million," said Morgan Griffith (R-Salem), who pushed the museum project in the House, where he is majority leader. "We were hoping for a little bit more. You can't sneer at $2 million. That's a big shot in the arm."

Though not a fan of the new museum's ultra-modern design, which has not yet been released to the general public, Griffith said the project would nonetheless be good for the community and bring dollars into the economy.

Taubman also was not looking a gift horse in the mouth. "I cannot really complain," she said. "Hopefully, we'll get more."

The city of Roanoke remains the largest public donor to the project, with a pledge of $4 million and an acre of downtown real estate. The state appropriation would bring to more than $7 million the amount of local, state and federal funding committed thus far to the project, whose total cost is not yet publicly known.

Museum officials said in 2000 the new museum would cost from $30 million to $35 million, but building costs have increased, and the scope of the project apparently has grown.

"I'm hoping we'll be able to furnish that information before the year's end," said Fralin when asked about the building's price tag.