Boca Raton Museum of Art Keeps Art School in Boca Raton After Delray Proposal Falls Through

The Boca Raton Museum of Art will keep its art school at its current location at 801 W. Palmetto Park Road after Executive Director Irvin Lippman withdrew a proposal made this spring to move it to Delray Beach, according to The Coastal Star.

Lippman said "it was never the case" that the museum was going to close the art school. "It is definitely staying in Boca Raton," he told The Coastal Star.

Students said they had been unaware of the outreach to Delray Beach and were alarmed when they learned of it. "Nobody knew this was going on," ceramics student Rebecca Vaughan told The Coastal Star. Donna Winton, who has taken three art classes a week since January, said that when she spoke to other students "they were in shock." Winton added: "It is convenient. It is for Boca. It is not for Delray. Delray can make their own facility."

Lippman said the proposal grew partly from the museum's membership geography. While half of its members live in Boca Raton, the rest live in Delray Beach and nearby towns. "It made perfect sense to have the auxiliary program elsewhere," he said. He and Board of Trustees Chair John DesPrez III outlined the museum's interest in an April 22 letter to Delray Beach City Manager Terrence Moore. The most recent overture stalled in part because Mayor Tom Carney wanted to offer a short-term use permit for the summer rather than a long-term lease, which Lippman said would have been unworkable.

The proposal was not the museum's first approach to Delray Beach. Two years ago, officials proposed running the Cornell Art Museum, but that effort was blocked by what The Coastal Star described as fractious Delray Beach politics.

The school's long-term situation in Boca Raton remains unsettled. The 60-year-old art school building is in too poor shape to be renovated, Lippman said, and must eventually be replaced. Plans for a new building made roughly two years ago were scrapped because the proposed structure was too large for the property. Museum officials are now considering how to replace the building on the existing site, but Lippman said "we are not even near a point of talking about a new building" and that a decision is "some years away."

Students are not reassured. "Our concern now is that it is not over. They will look for another way" to move the school, Vaughan said. "I am afraid for its future."

Source: thecoastalstar.com.