Plans to decorate the new Washington Nationals’ new stadium with crafts, sculpture and bronze figures are in limbo after the D.C. Council eliminated money in next year’s budget for a public arts project.
In the proposed fiscal 2008 capital improvement plan submitted by Mayor Adrian Fenty, the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities was budgeted for $850,000 to spend on various stadium art-related projects — sculptures, mosaics, murals, paving designs, custom benches and artistic gates among them.
The art was to be purchased with general obligation bonds, permanently owned by the commission and leased to the team at no cost, which put the works outside the strict $611 million stadium construction cap, or so advocates maintained. But in its deliberation of the budget, which passed May 15, the council zeroed out the money, effectively closing the door on publicly financed artwork.
“It would appear that would have killed the cap on the stadium itself, so that money was taken out,” said Council Member Kwame Brown, who has oversight of the arts commission as chairman of the economic development committee.
Though the budget process is done for 2008, the Fenty administration still is negotiating to revive the projects, said Sean Madigan, spokesman for the deputy mayor for planning and economic development.
“We are working closely with members of the council to restore all funding levels in our original request, all the while keeping our commitment to see that the stadium comes in on time and on budget,” Madigan said in a statement.
It is not known whether there have been talks with any outside entities, the Nationals included, to obtain privately funded art.
Critics of the stadium arts project said the $850,000 could be put to better use in the arts community, though it appears the money was completely removed from the commission’s 2008 budget.
“That was just a really absurd attempt to get around the spending cap,” said Mike Licht, a local arts advocate.
On its Web site, the arts commission continues to seek submissions for a $200,000 suspended installation project slated for the stadium’s main concourse. Other stadium-related calls for artists already have been issued for garage enhancements and for bronze figures to be placed on the Baseball Plaza.
