Residents keep trying to retain Barnes Collection
Last Updated: Monday, March 24, 2008 | 3:14 PM ET
CBC News
Residents of a Philadelphia-area suburb have petitioned a court to hear new arguments in their fight to retain the Barnes Foundation multibillion-dollar art collection in their community.
Lawyers representing Montgomery County and a citizens group called Friends of the Barnes have asked Judge Stanley Ott, who holds jurisdiction over Dr. Albert Barnes's trust, to reconsider his 2004 ruling.
The Barnes Foundation collection, seen here in 2007, is located in Lower Merion, 17 kilometres outside Philadelphia. Officials plan to move the collection to the downtown core.
(George Widman/Associated Press)
In that decision, Ott ruled in favour of the foundation's decision to break with founder Albert Barnes's will, which said the gallery must stay in the community of Lower Merion in Montgomery County.
The foundation had hatched a plan in 2002 to move the famed art collection from Lower Merion Township, about 17 kilometres northwest of Philadelphia, to the downtown core.
The foundation said the new locale would provide more space and allow more visitors to see the collection, which includes works by Renoir, Cézanne, Matisse and Picasso.
Last June, the foundation rejected a $50-million US offer by the county to stay put.
On Monday, county lawyers and representatives of Friends of the Barnes demanded new hearings to keep the foundation at its current location with new proposals that would provide the Barnes with funding it needs to stay put.
The foundation had cited poverty when it asked Ott for permission to leave the suburbs. It said the museum would go bankrupt if it had to keep its massive impressionist and post-impressionist collection so out-of-the-way while also dealing with the township's limits on the number of visitors allowed daily.
Lawyers for the township say a new ordinance would allow more visitors and that a county-backed purchase-lease back arrangement would give the Barnes a huge infusion of cash.
They also said the Barnes building is eligible for National Historic Landmark status, which would make it eligible for federal funding.
Meanwhile, attorneys for the foundation argued the county's financial proposal is far from guaranteed and they say this attempt to keep the Barnes in the county is too little, too late.
Ott did not say when he will issue a decision.
The foundation has raised $150 million US to build a new home and establish an operating endowment but construction has yet to begin.
With files from the Associated PressShare Tools
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