Art Barn awarded $500,000 for renovation
Utah State’s “Art Barn,” future home of the Museum of Anthropology and USU campus Welcome Center, recently received a $500,000 Challenge Grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to aid in its renovation and expansion.
Word of the success came in December 2010 and was a shock to Bonnie Pitblado, director of the museum, who said chances of obtaining the grant were really slim.
She said, “I was truly stunned. If you are lucky enough to get (this grant), it takes two or three times through, so I cannot believe that we did this. It just means we have a really cool project.”
NEH is an independent grant-making government entity, akin to NASA or the National Science Foundation. Its purpose is to support through grants research, education, preservation, and public programs in the humanities.
One such grant, the Challenge Grant, is intended to help institutions and organizations retain long-term improvement and support for their programs by helping them establish and generate earnings or by aiding in construction and renovation, according to neh.gov. The one stipulation is that applicants raise three times the amount of federal funds offered.
Cynthia Buckingham, director of the Utah Humanities Council, said, “NEH’s Challenge Grants are extremely competitive and indicate confidence in the applicant’s ability to raise the 3:1 required matching funds.”
By matching NEH funding and obtaining what Pitblado calls “anchor sponsors,” which donate larger amounts, applicants of the NEH Challenge Grant prove their project is worth investing in.
The creation of the barn complex requires $3.9 million, and the strategic planning of the barn predicts $7.8 million dollars necessary for filling program and position needs. Pitblado said she applied for the maximum amount of grant money in April 2010, which, with fluctuations in the stock market and government appropriations, totaled $500,000. The Museum of Anthropology received the full amount, but not without hard work, Pitblado said.
She said, “I ended up writing a 147 page proposal. I’ve never written anything as brutal.”
She explained the two-fold project written in the proposal gives money toward advancement and money toward academics to help with the humanistic aspect of the barn as well as the physical.
One of the more substantial components of the new structure will be a welcoming center at the front. The barn, Pitblado said, is at the heart of campus, and the center would be a destination spot to buy game tickets and to get introduced to Utah State.
The project will also include the Museum of Anthropology toward the back and modern facilities connected to the old barn by a bridge, something Pitblado considers as a way to connect the community to USU. “To me that building is the perfect space to be that for us. It kind of embodies our whole history, past, present, and even future,” she said.
Floors two and three are condemned as of now due to fire code violations. Because the blueprint includes a silo with an elevator and wrap around stairs, the barn must also be retrofitted in case of earthquakes. The costs are great but that is what is needed for it to be occupied, Pitblado said.
“You have something that’s a resource that’s not replaceable,” she said. “It’s a lot better than bulldozing the thing and putting up some newfangled structure that doesn’t fit us.”
The barn was built in 1919 and has undergone many changes in look and occupants over time. Part of the renovation will include tributes to the stories that took place inside, and many of those stories can be read on usubarn.blogspot.com. The museum staff is also working with UPR to broadcast the stories through short “barnyard” segments.
Grassroots funding and community involvement opportunities have already begun, Pitblado said, and there are many opportunities for community members to donate or help in raising the barn. The goal is to have construction done by December 2012 and to open the barn to the public by mid-2013. Pitblado wants everyone to take part in the process.
“When all is said and done, it will have been everyone’s barn, if it goes according to my hopes,” she said, “Everyone will know about this, everyone will be excited, everyone will have done what they could do.”
– ariwrees@gmail.com