When the Board of Visitors first approved the Arts Gateway to the University of Virginia in 2007, the project—an estimated $118 million plan that would include, among other buildings, a new art museum at the current site of the Cavalier Inn—was slated to begin construction during the spring of 2009. Now, with renovations underway for the UVA Art Museum on Rugby Road, Vice Provost for the Arts Elizabeth Hutton Turner says that plans for the Arts Gateway are on “indefinite hold.”
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According to Vice Provost for the Arts Elizabeth Hutton Turner, the UVA Art Museum—currently closed for renovation and slated to reopen in August—may soon solicit design proposals for a planned 17,000-square-foot expansion. |
“We’ve pressed the ‘restart button’ for the museum and are proceeding with the expansion of the old Bayly [Art Museum] building to match the expansion of our ambitions,” said Turner in an interview.
However, save for a few components of the Arts Gateway—for instance, that name-making location on Emmet Street—both Turner and new museum director Bruce Boucher feel convinced that the renovations there will fulfill many of the same goals, as well as components of the Arts Grounds project included in the University’s Virginia 2020 plan, first announced by President John Casteen in 1998.
“The thing to remember is that the Arts Gateway was going to be an interdisciplinary center, and we would have been part of a large number of other features and facilities there,” said Boucher of the museum. When asked about the possibility of decreased visibility given its non-“gateway” location, Boucher added that the museum renovation plan is a “win-win situation, because we stay in the center of Grounds.”
“There was some discussion as to whether students and faculty would migrate across Emmet Street,” he said. “I think it’s better in the foreseeable future for us to be on Rugby Road and to utilize as much as possible both the existing buildings and the possibility of expansion behind the Bayly.”
Turner specified that the expansion of the art museum was a project separate from the building’s renovation. “We’ve written the program for the new building,” she said—including a 17,000-square-foot addition that would increase the museum’s programming space by roughly 88 percent. “But we do not have a design yet. We look forward to a moment in the very near future where we’ll be able to put out a request for proposals.” The museum’s renovations will include print and object galleries, greater on-site storage of the museum’s permanent collection, and expansion of the entrance of the Bayly, as well as allowance for climate control of each room.
Both Boucher and Turner cited the economy as a deterrent from the Arts Gateway project. By renovating rather than relocating, the museum will remain close to a large number of arts buildings at UVA, including the Culbreth Theatre and the new studio art and exhibition space, Ruffin Hall.
Whether other components of the Gateway will find a new life is another question. During Friday’s Board of Visitors meeting, Board members and President Casteen expressed concerns over the design and location, respectively, of the plans for a new rehearsal hall for McIntire Department of Music. University Architect David Neuman will consider the design and revisit donors for the project—possibly including Hunter Smith, an early Gateway donor whose $22 million gift to create an arts center went unused when construction failed to start in 2005.
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