Smithsonian cancels Innovation Center plans
By hola | Published | No Comments
The Smithsonian Institution has scrapped plans to open an Innovation Center for temporary exhibitions in the Arts & Industries Building on the National Mall, leaving the proposed site for the American Latino Museum vacant for the foreseeable future.
Smithsonian officials had planned to reopen the historic building later this year to host a series of “pop-up” exhibitions. Closed since 2006 after falling into disrepair, the Innovation Center project was viewed as an opportunity to renovate the stately 1881 building and reacquaint the public with one of the oldest structures on The Mall. Backers of the proposed Latino museum supported the plans as long as the Innovation Center remained an “interim” project. Doing so, according to their theory, would raise the building’s profile with museumgoers.
In the end, however, the renovation costs were too great after a fundraising campaign fell short of its target, says Linda St. Thomas, a spokeswoman for the Smithsonian Institution.
Congress had previously allocated $55 million used for repairs to the exterior of the building included a new roof. Interior renovations, however, were to have come from private sources. But funds, which would have paid for revamping the first floor and replacing the heating and air conditioning system, never materialized.
“There had been attempts at fundraising, but it was in its early stages,” St. Thomas says. Smithsonian officials canceled the plans when it became clear that fundraising targets would not be met in time to open the Innovation Center next summer.
“After a year of program planning and financial review, the Smithsonian concluded the cost of rehabilitating the building for public use and operating it exceeded available funding sources at this time,” the Smithsonian said in a Jan. 27 statement.
The failure to reopen the building is largely a result of funding decisions by Congress, which has been in budget cutting mode in the last few years, according to Estuardo Rodriguez, spokesperson for Friends of the National Museum of the American Latino, an organization spearheading the lobbying efforts the new museum, which is still at least a decade away from breaking ground.
“The hope is that the era of budget cuts to the arts and cultural sectors comes to an end,” he says.
-By Sam Sturgis
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