The University of Missouri System Board of Curators met on Thursday and Friday in Columbia, Missouri, to review and vote on a $200 million appropriations request for the Missouri Legislature.
On Friday, the Curators approved including a request for $48 million in matching funds for the downtown campus for the arts, a new home for the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory of Music and Dance.
In Missouri, capital projects at public colleges and universities are eligible for a 50-50 matching program for public-private partnerships.
Fundraising for the downtown campus kicked off in 2013 with a $20 million challenge grant from the Muriel McBrien Kauffman Foundation. To approach the state of Missouri for matching funds, UMKC was required to raise $48 million in private funds. According to a news release, "the private fundraising effort has reached a successful conclusion."
Classrooms, practice rooms, and performance spaces for UMKC's Conservatory are currently scattered across the Volker campus in Midtown. The first phase of the proposed project, estimated at $96 million, includes a new downtown facility just south of the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts.
Laura Spencer is an arts reporter at KCUR 89.3. You can reach her on Twitter at @lauraspencer.
