09-18-2000 Planning Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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The Center mounts an average of nine exhibits per year, open to the public without charge, featuring the works of Minnesota and regional professional artists. Attendance at these exhibits has increased annually. Community outreach has also increased in recent years. MCA has been collaborating with C.O.N.E.C.T. (Community Organizations Networking Compassionately Together) to provide summer arts camp experiences and seven-week courses in metal working, jewelry making and ceramics for high-risk families and children from low-income neighborhoods. MCA hosts Positive Strokes, a community arts festival for physically- challenged children and adults. MCA collaborates with more than two dozen schools in the seven-county area and sponsors a juried exhibition of student work. MCA also hosts the Twin Cities Suburban Arts Conference which features 150 outstanding arts students and their teachers from fourteen high schools and includes workshops, demonstrations and seihinars. Other recent outreach partners include St. David’s Child Development and Family Services, The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Little Brothers-Friends of the Elderly, Orono Community Education, The Institute of Renewing Leadership at the University of St. Thomas and the Radisson Hotel Corp. For programs that require fees, MCA has a scholarship fund so programs are accessible regardless of ability to pay. Unlike most community art centers, MCA receives no city or county funding. The budget for the 1999-2000 fiscal year (6/30) was $833,600, and 78% of the income was the result of earned revenues, an exceptionally high ratio for an arts organization. For the past 11 years, MCA has operated with balanced budgets and is expected to continue to do so. After two years of thorough analysis by architects and construction professionals, including Architectural Alliance and M. A. Mortenson Company, it was determined that the direct and contingent costs of remodeling and enlarging the existing MCA building would likely be as costly as new construction. In addition, remodeling would require closing the Center for at least a year (or partially closing for two years, if the remodeling was staged). Fortunately,’ MCA has sufficient land (over five acres) that allows for construction of a new facility without interruption of classes in our current facility, thus preventing the likely loss of students and/or faculty. Currently envisioned is a dramatic new arts center of 30,000 sq. ft. as compared to our emrent 22,000 sq. ft. The building is being designed by James Dayton, the architect who recently designed the Northern Clay Center. The new building will increase useable space by at least 50% and be far more flexible than our current elementary school building. Of particular importance will be vastly expanded and improved exhibition spaces with adequate climate and security controls. The Center draws over 25,000 visitors a year to its exhibits, but the quality of its exhibits has been limited because of a lack of climate and security controls in the galleries. Despite the increase in the size of the building, architects and engineers predict, by virtue of the building design and systems, that monthly operating and maintenance costs will decline by an estimated 20%. MCA has a professional faculty and staff, a strong and growing constituency and a Board that is increasingly capable, responsible and personally invested in the Crossroads Campaign. A Campaign Committee has been at work since the fall of 1998; $4,028,963 has been pledged as of 8/23/00; and payments of over $ 1 .9 million have been received on existing pledges. Included is a $200,000 pledge by an anonymous donor, contingent upon MCA reaching $4.8 million. MCA has identified additional major gift prospects totaling $2.5 million and expects decisions from most by year-end. J