The city may have recently had some doubts, but the Whitney Museum is officially going ahead with its plans for a Renzo Piano-designed building at 820 Washington Street. The Times reports that the Whitney's board (meeting at The Standard!) voted unanimously in favor of the project and plans to break ground a year from now, with completion scheduled for 2015. Raising cash has been a problem, but the museum has a plan for that, too (they think of everything, don't they?): another attempt to sell off the brownstones next to the existing Whitney building at Madison Avenue and East 75th Street, plus a possible partnership with the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Even mega-donor Leonard Lauder, an opponent of the Whitney's High Line expansion, finally came down on the side of the project. Probably a good thing, because those scanned fruit slices weren't gonna do it for long.
· Whitney Museum Votes to Build Downtown [NYT]
· Whitney Museum MePa coverage [Curbed]
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