A state agency is threatening to pull funding for Pompidou x, the planned Jersey City outpost of the Centre Pompidou art museum based in Paris. According to an article today in NJBiz, Tim Sullivan, the chief executive officer of the New Jersey Economic Development Authority, wrote the Jersey City Redevelopment Agency questioning the agency’s budget shortfall for the project.
In the letter to JCRA Executive Director Diana Jeffrey, Sullivan wrote, “Based on the information you provided us, JCRA has identified annual revenue of slightly less than $4 million annually, and recurring expenses of slightly less than $23 million – for an annual operation shortfall of approximately $19 million.”
In October, the Jersey City Times reported that the JCRA had blacked out cost projections for the museum in response to a public records request. At the time, the Times estimated that yearly operating expenses for Pompidou x could well exceed $16 million. Sullivan’s letter indicates that that estimate was low by $7 million per year.
“As you know, none of the $34 million appropriated to the project via the NJEDA has been released due to the lack of balanced sources and uses and operating plan” wrote Sullivan.
In August, Sen. Michael Testa (R-Cumberland) claimed that the project’s cost has ballooned since it was first proposed, with tens of thousands of dollars spent on consultants, and with no oversight of the $58 million in state aid that had been set aside for the project.
While conceptually supportive of the the project, the NJEDA has reportedly given the JCRA one month to provide an updated revenue and expense model for Pompidou x that closes the annual deficit.
If the JCRA can’t close the budget shortfall, Sullivan said “we will have to consider whether it is more prudent for the state to use these funds for other fiscal priorities that the Legislature and the governor might identify through the budget and federal fund process.”