Correction: The Fine Arts Club of Arkansas was formed in 1914. Members of that group helped create the Museum of Fine Arts in 1937, which was renamed the Arkansas Arts Center in 1960. This article incorrectly reported the year the museum was founded.
Little Rock will submit a proposal next week that lays out its plan to keep the Arkansas Arts Center in the city, Mayor Mark Stodola said Wednesday.
The Arts Center Foundation has been in talks with North Little Rock for months about the possibility of a new building along the riverfront there, funded by a portion of a possible 1 percent sales tax.
Those discussions were secret until January when the Arts Center Foundation polled North Little Rock residents to gauge support of the tax increase, half of which would fund police and fire needs with the rest funding an arts center and museum.
Stodola quickly responded to the news of the potential move by saying that he'd work to keep the Arts Center in the city, where it has been since its predecessor was founded in 1914.
Little Rock owns the center's building at 501 E. Ninth St., but the nonprofit foundation owns the artwork and oversees an endowment that will provide $1.6 million to the Arts Center in 2015.
In an update Wednesday to the Arkansas Arts Center board of trustees -- a group appointed by the mayor to oversee operations of the center -- Foundation Chairman Bobby Tucker said the foundation will pay for a poll of Little Rock voters.
Stodola said the city plans to take the foundation up on its offer. He has four location proposals where the Arts Center can move within Little Rock, all of which would require additional taxpayer funding.
"Certainly the issue of a limited duration quarter or half penny sales tax is an option," said Stodola, adding that a sales tax increase, millage increase or increase to the so-called hamburger tax levied on hotel and restaurant customers are all options.
Voters would have to approve any increase during a special election.
It might be difficult to get the city Board of Directors to sign on to a proposal that sends more city money to the Arts Center. Several board members expressed concern during the past budget cycle about a $150,000 increase in funding to the center this year.
The city paid $550,000 for maintenance of the city-owned building for 2015. It has paid millions of dollars since 1960, when the city officially created the Arkansas Arts Center with an ordinance.
Tucker stressed Wednesday that the foundation's current plans are to undertake the new building project using public funds only. He said no private funds have been committed, though he added that the foundation wouldn't turn down any donations.
North Little Rock Mayor Joe Smith has always described the proposal for an arts center on his side of the river as a public-private partnership.
Arts Center Director Todd Herman clarified in a phone call after Wednesday's meeting that the center is looking for a $100 million commitment in public funding for the initial construction of a new building, and then continued funding of a one-eighth percent tax that would remain for upkeep and programming after the initial construction is paid off.
The $100 million figure is an estimate of what it would cost to build a facility slightly larger than the one the center has now, Herman said. The center and its foundation would pursue private donations to go above that because the project may end up costing more, and the donations would also build the center's endowment "to sustain the institution long term," Herman said.
Both Herman and Tucker expressed frustration with reporting in the Arkansas Times blog that gave other funding scenarios.
"While we've been going through this process there's been speculation in the press that there's a huge private donation or gift out there. That is incorrect," Tucker said. "We are looking at all public money. No private money has been pledged. We don't expect any to be pledged. ... I have seen in the Arkansas Times that there's a private gift of $40 million sitting out there and that's just not true. If there is, I don't know about it."
Tucker was referring to blog posts in which Max Brantley, editor of the Times' Arkansas Blog, reported that confidential sources told him the tentative idea was a funding model that would raise $60 million in public funds from half of the proceeds of a 1 percent sales tax over 10 years, while at least $40 million would come from private sources, "specifically the Stephens family of Little Rock, long the major patrons of the Arkansas Arts Center."
Tucker is the managing director at Stephens Inc., a financial services firm of which Warren Stephens is the president and chief executive officer. Stephens had earlier issued a statement to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that said he is "not the person or entity behind the large donation that has been discussed."
Brantley told the Democrat-Gazette on Wednesday that he stands by his writing.
"I'm absolutely, completely and positively convinced that important people within the Stephens corporate hierarchy are very interested and have been participating in the behind-the-scene decisions about the location of a new Arts Center," Brantley said. "I never said there was a commitment, but I did say and still say there are some significant private investors who are interested in seeing the Arts Center have a new building and supporting it in some fashion."
Smith clarified in a phone conversation Wednesday that the initial $60 million-$40 million split scenario was "nothing but a thought and whisper back then." He said it was a hypothetical example if a new building were to cost $100 million and the sales tax were to end after 10 years. The building could cost more than that and the sales tax could be in place longer, he said.
He added that if the foundation chose to move forward with a new building in North Little Rock and voters approved a sales tax increase, he would work to acquire grants and donations to keep the taxpayers' expense "as low as possible."
Metro on 03/05/2015