Proposed new UMKC conservatory poised to get boost from KC

University of Missouri-Kansas City boosters made an impassioned appeal Wednesday for City Council support of their proposed downtown music and dance conservatory, and it worked.

Members of the council’s Planning, Zoning and Economic Development Committee unanimously endorsed a $7 million city contribution in the $96 million project. The resolution goes to the full council Thursday for a vote.

The $7 million would pay for the land and public infrastructure to support the new conservatory. It would be built on ground bounded by 17th and 18th streets and by Broadway and Central Avenue, just south of the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts.

Warren Erdman, curator emeritus for the university, told the committee that UMKC’s existing conservatory is one of the few university programs that is truly “globally recognized” for outstanding faculty and students.

But he said the existing conservatory facilities on the Volker campus are woefully inadequate, barely satisfactory for an elementary school. The new conservatory, he said, would be world class and create a fabulous partnership with the downtown Performing Arts Center.

Erdman also said the new facility would mean the permanent addition of about 700 artistically talented students and faculty, mostly ages 18 to 35, to the downtown neighborhood.

“This project is downtown’s fountain of youth,” he said.

The conservatory’s dean, Peter Witte, said the current conservatory consists of about 54,000 square feet in three cramped, disparate buildings. The new building as currently envisioned would be about 165,000 square feet on four floors, with two state-of-the-art performance spaces and other flexible spaces. The building is not expected to have a new parking garage. Conservatory participants would be expected to use the Performing Arts Center’s existing garage.

Witte said this new conservatory is expected to create the same type of symbiotic relationship with the Performing Arts Center as the Julliard School has with Lincoln Center in New York City.

City Manager Troy Schulte said the city funding is the last piece of fundraising that UMKC had to do to raise its $48 million share toward the total project cost. That’s what is needed to secure $48 million in a state matching-fund program. The city would buy the land from an anonymous donor, who would reinvest all those proceeds into the conservatory project.

Schulte said the city land purchase and contribution to the UMKC project is contingent on the project getting state funds. The city funds should be available, he said, after the city pays off the debt on several downtown garages in a few years, thus freeing up that money for other uses.

Councilwoman Heather Hall said that before the meeting she had wondered why city taxpayers always have to contribute to civic assets. But she was convinced by the presentation that UMKC had aggressively raised private money and that the city’s role was appropriate. Other committee members agreed it was a good city investment that will leverage many times its worth in economic development.

But the project still requires years of work, Erdman acknowledged. It could still take a few years to nail down the state funding. Even then, design and construction could take three years.

This story was originally published September 7, 2016 at 5:04 PM with the headline "Proposed new UMKC conservatory poised to get boost from KC."