Old Capitol District likely art museum site choice

A new University of Iowa Museum of Art should be student-focused, and a location within the UI's Old Capitol District would support that, museum envisioning committee members said Friday.

Members said they are leaning toward recommending the UI build a new museum within the Old Capitol District, a defined area in the UI master plan that includes academic buildings on the east side of campus.

One idea discussed Friday - tearing down the Iowa Memorial Union parking ramp and rebuilding a four-story ramp on a half-block footprint, with the art museum on the top with an entrance on the Cleary Walkway - may be one possible site suggestion in the final report.

The draft report was discussed Friday, and members hope to give a final version to UI President Sally Mason this month.

The final report likely will suggest a few possible sites within the Old Capitol District, but will not recommend one specific location as the choice, members said.

The committee was charged by Mason in

August with looking at the future of the art museum, which was displaced from its facility on Riverside Drive by the 2008 flood.

“This Old Capitol District ... will put the museum right in the path of students,” Bob Fellows, physiology professor emeritus and museum advisory board member, said.

The idea of building a museum where the Memorial Union ramp and Halsey Hall now sit would offer land the UI already owns, with accessible parking and a good location to integrate the museum into the educational mission, said committee member H. Dee Hoover, a professor emeritus who suggested that site idea.

“I think this would kick-start good things,” Hoover said.

That's one example of a dream vision the committee may include in the final report along with other site possibilities, Chairwoman Carroll Reasoner, UI interim general counsel, said.

“As a dream, you want this to be an amazing and wonderful building,” she said.

The report also likely will recommend a larger museum than the previous one, with more storage and classroom space.