University of Iowa Drops Art Museum Partnership

IOWA CITY, Iowa — The University of Iowa (UI) recently withdrew from a planned public-private partnership for construction of a new Museum of Art building in Iowa City after university officials became concerned about the cost, which is currently estimated at $80 million.

This announcement comes about 1.5 years after the university announced the partnership with the Hieronymus family, locally based H+H Development Group and Minneapolis-based Mortenson Inc. The site, known as Hieronymus Square, is located across the street from the UI School of Music, scheduled to open this fall, according to the Press-Citizen. The university will still cover the costs for all architectural and other work done, which totals about $2 million.

"At some point, probably in the late fall, we got to be concerned with the costs that this was getting to," David Kieft, the university’s business manager, told the Press-Citizen on March 9. "We worked with the developers and the architect to try to bring those costs down, but there are still certain parameters that you’ve got to meet to be an accredited museum and protect your collection."

Because of concerns over the projected costs for the 70,000- to 75,000-square-foot building, a team of about 10 UI administration officials started meeting together to reconsider options for the new museum. Despite the cancellation of the partnership, UI officials announced earlier this month that they are committed to constructing a new building for the university’s approximately 14,000-piece art collection, which has been without a permanent home since its former building was flooded in 2008.

Various large-scale projects for the downtown site have been proposed and ultimately abandoned in the past, reported the Press-Citizen. The university plans to use a different site as well, even though plans for the next phase of the museum have yet to be determined. However, university officials said that some of the planning and design work that has already been completed can be reconfigured and reused in the next phase.