Carnegie Hall has received a $10 million challenge grant from its chairman, Sanford I. Weill, and his wife, Joan, and their Weill Family Foundation toward the completion of its $230 million renovation. The project, known as the Studio Towers Renovation, will create new spaces for music education on the landmark building’s upper floors and upgrade the concert hall’s backstage areas. It is scheduled to be completed in 2014.
“It will really transform Carnegie Hall,†Mr. Weill said in a telephone interview. “It’s much more effective to run an organization where everything you’re doing is in one place.â€
The main part of the project is the new 61,000-square-foot Judith B. and Burton P. Resnick Education Wing,which includes practice rooms, teaching studios and a home for Carnegie Hall’s archives.
The grant challenges Carnegie Hall to raise $20 million by Sept. 30 for a total of $30 million toward the capital campaign. Nearly half the funds needed to meet the challenge have been raised so far, and more than $209 million has been raised over all. The $10 million challenge grantâ€"to be matched by $9 million in recently received pledges and $11 million still to be raisedâ€"would complete fundraising.
In 2003, a major endowment gift from the Weills established Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute, which developed the organization’s music education and community programs.
Pledges received to date include a previously-announced $25 million leadership gift from the Weills; a $10 million major gift from Judith and Burton Resnick; and funding from New York City and New York State. The total also includes $56.5 million in net proceeds from bonds issued through the Trust for Cultural Resources from the City of New York.
