Barnes move critics appeal to Corbett

An area congressman and a Montgomery County commissioner have asked the Corbett administration to reconsider state funding committed to the $150 million Barnes Foundation museum under construction on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway.

The lawmakers, Republican Rep. Jim Gerlach, whose district includes Lower Merion, where the Barnes is currently located, and Commissioner Bruce L. Castor Jr., also a Republican, said in a joint Feb. 7 letter that the project should be reviewed and all funds for the project should be halted until that review is complete.

The Corbett administration ought to "thoroughly reevaluate the wrongheaded decision to borrow money and compel current and future generations of Pennsylvania taxpayers to pay off the debt incurred for the unnecessary Barnes relocation project," the letter said.

Corbett's press office did not respond to requests for comment Tuesday. In 2007, Corbett, who was then attorney general, declined to intervene in the Barnes appeals process.

The Rendell administration approved about $47 million in capital funds for the project; according to Gerlach and Castor, about $38 million has not yet been spent.

Barnes officials say the state has signed off on, and the foundation has committed to spend, $36 million of the $47 million. They say the total project costs will be about $200 million - $150 million for construction and at least $50 million for an endowment. Including the state redevelopment capital funds that Gerlach and Castor want halted and reviewed, the Barnes Foundation has raised about $160 million.

Andrew Stewart, Barnes spokesman, said fund-raising "is continuing and is going well." He said construction is "on time and on budget for a 2012 opening."

In their letter, addressed to Corbett's general counsel, Stephen S. Aichele, Gerlach and Castor said Corbett owed Lower Merion residents "peace of mind."

"It appears our taxpayers are subsidizing the relocation of an unparalleled art collection from its home township and community in order to benefit another municipality just a few miles away," the lawmakers wrote.

The Barnes' virtually unparalleled collection of Renoirs, Cezannes, Matisses and Soutines has been housed in Lower Merion since the 1920s. After a contentious legal wrangle going back to the 1990s, Montgomery County Orphans Court ruled that the collection could be moved to a new location in Philadelphia.

Barbara Rosin, a member of a group fighting the move, said Corbett's administration still had an opportunity to halt the "waste of tax payer dollars" represented by construction of the new facility.