The Asheville Art Museum is seeking approval from Asheville City Council to sell the naming rights of its outdoor plaza in the heart of downtown to the North Carolina State Employees’ Credit Union Foundation.
The tentative deal calls for renaming the public space at the corner of Biltmore and Patton avenues “SECU Plaza.” The SECU Foundation would pay $1.5 million to the museum in exchange for the designation and an accompanying sign. In a letter to Asheville Mayor Esther Manheimer, museum director Pamela Myers says the funding is “critical” to completing planned renovations at the site.
As of this July, the museum had raised $15 million towards its goal of $19 million for major renovations and an expansion at the facility, according to museum attorney Lou Bissette. On July 23, Council approved a controversial new leasing arrangement for the museum as well as other tenants located in the Pack Place building.
Council will consider the naming rights proposal at its Oct. 28 meeting.
The SECU Foundation is a charitable branch of the State Employees’ Credit Union, a nonprofit financial cooperative of state workers. In her letter to the city, Myers writes, “SECU has been an active supporter of important community endeavors throughout North Carolina.” She notes that Mission Hospital recently named one of its treatment facilities the “SECU Cancer Center” in exchange for funding.
If approved, the “SECU Plaza” name would apply for the entirety of the museum’s current 30-year lease with the city.
A report from city staff recommends that Council approve the request, noting: “This naming rights opportunity will assist the Art Museum in raising the funds it needs.” The report continues: “SECU Foundation is ‘an organization that has served and positively contributed to the citizens of this state and this community and the approval of naming of city owned property for such an organization is consistent with the past and present naming rights, guidelines and approvals.’”
On Oct. 28 Council will also consider plans to reduce domestic violence and an update on the future of Duke Energy’s local power plant.
Council will also consider new appointments to the city’s Planning & Zoning Commission.
Asheville City Council meets at 5 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 28, in room 209 of City Hall. Read the meeting agenda here.
Council may have approved a controversial new leasing arrangement, but they still don’t have a signed lease.
There are other tenets in this building, why do they not get the right to sell the name? I think the art museum is awful pushy. This building was never intended to just house an art museum but they certainly are pushing everyone out. I suspect if they could find a way to remove the theatre or use that space, they would do so as well. They don’t seem to play well with others and I would be reticent to reward them for such behavior.
If, like me, you do not support your credit union making a $1.5 million grant to this very questionable takeover of the Pack Place facility by a small group of self serving individuals affiliated with the art museum, please let your displeasure be known by ending your support of the SECU foundation. Instructions for reallocating your credit union maintenance fees from the foundation to credit union operating funds is pasted below from the credit union site. Also notify them of the reason you are ending your support for this otherwise admirable credit union program.
—“What if I do not support the idea of the SECU Foundation?
The fee will go into the operating fund of SECU. You may opt out of contributing to the Foundation at any time. Providing the ability to opt out of contribution to the Foundation gives you a “vote” on the projects and progress of the Foundation. “
To opt out, members may sign on to SECU Member Access and submit their opt out request via Services. Members may also visit their local branch or contact the Call Center at 1-888-732-8562 or (919) 857-2150, if local to Raleigh.
In the South it is quite apparent that art is either entertainment, branding, or pornography. The Fine Arts Theatre on Biltmore was one of the more sophisticated porn houses in the South. Fine Art Bankstas and Pornographers inhabit the same crony cerebral regions of perverted power mongrels. And since the Ashevile Art Museum is run by Affluenza Infected Pornographers/Bankstas, why not get Jamie Dimon and Lloyd Blankfein and go for the Big Bucks Suckas. We all know the Museum totally sucks and is there for a family and friends egos branded to Asheville, a mythological art towne for those with terminal Affluenza…BooH YaH !!!
Interesting name, Mr. “Schlong”. Is it Swedish?
If this happens, I will be disgusted, or at least mightily irritated, with all the players. I’m still disturbed that the Asheville Civic Center sold its name. It’s like selling our birthright for a mess of pottage, isn’t it?
As subtle a naming faceplate as a brick inlay with the name on it, or a fountain with the same, it hardly accounts for the intrusion of the name branding change for the Asheville Civic Center, which most of us still call the Asheville Civic Center. The SECU Plaza heretofore doesn’t even have a name, and the various naming of the pieces and parts of Pack Square and City County Plaza haven’t altered what most people call those spaces, at all.
The $1.5 million dollars donated by the SECU Foundation, a charitable organization, promoting charitable causes, will allow the Asheville Art Museum to go forward now with construction of a plan that has been in process for over ten years, to enhance the footprint of what they have already contributed to transforming downtown Asheville from a desert to an economic engine for all of Western North Carolina over the last 20+ years.