Couple’s $4M earns museum naming rights
After renovations, Vladem Contemporary facility will complement New Mexico Museum of Art; site expected to open in 2020
It’s described as a 1930s-era “brick warehouse box” that served as a distribution center back when it is was sandwiched between two rail lines. Later, it housed the state archives. In the next couple of years, the longclosed Halpin Building at edge of the city’s Railyard District, could be transformed to an airy, light-filled contemporary art annex of the downtown New Mexico Museum of Art. Standing at the corner of South Guadalupe Street and Montezuma Avenue, close to the Santa Fe Depot, the annex would be one of first attractions encountered by Rail Runner Express train passengers visiting the city.
Supporters envision it as another focal point in the Railyard that will help define the district as a hub of contemporary arts, along with galleries and the recently renovated SITE Santa Fe.
The state Department of Cultural Affairs and the private Museum of New Mexico Foundation announced Thursday they are closer to that goal after receiving a $4 million donation from wealthy Santa Fe residents, relative newcomers who secured naming rights with the gift.
Dan Perry, co-chairman of a foundation effort to raise $20 million for several state museum-related capital projects, introduced contributors Bob and Ellen Vladem to a couple of hundred state and local officials and patrons of the arts who gathered Thursday afternoon in the Halpin Building for the announcement.
“The Vladems have made the single largest gift in the history of the museum foundation,” Perry said.
With the infusion of cash, the foundation’s Centennial Campaign — named for the 100th anniversary in 2017 of the New Mexico Museum of Art’s founding — has raised $7.7 million toward its goal of $10 million to complete the Vladem Contemporary by 2020, officials said.
The three-story facility is expected to house contemporary art exhibits, stored collections, artist-in-residence studios, a cafe and educational spaces.
Supporters say the new contemporary facility will complement its
century-old sister museum just off the Santa Fe Plaza, which is the state’s oldest art museum and showcases a rich history of art in New Mexico.
Ashlyn Perry, Centennial Campaign co-chairwoman, called the project “one museum, two amazing locations.”
As he and his wife held a giant cardboard facsimile of their $4 million check, Bob Vladem quipped, “I wonder how high it will bounce.”
A native of Chicago, Vladem is a certified public accountant and a partner in several car dealerships in Pennsylvania. He is the chief financial officer for the Bobby Rahal Automotive Group — named for the former champion race car driver.
Formed in 1989, the group operates 14 dealerships in Pennsylvania selling a range of high-end cars, including BMWs, Jaguars, Land Rovers and Mercedes-Benz vehicles, according to published reports.
He owns other businesses, as well, and is known for his philanthropic activities. Vladem told
The New Mexican that he and his wife are big opera fans and have made donations in that field.
“Ellen and I really wanted to find something that would be a gift to the entire community,” he said of their donation to the museum.
Earlier, he told the crowd it was important to the couple to make the donation in their lifetime so their children “can see firsthand the fruits of our gifts.”
“Ellen and I are so inspired by Santa Fe,” Vladem added.
In 2015, he told The New Mexican he had purchased 20 pairs of boots at the iconic Western boot store Back at the Ranch. “I moved from Chicago,” he said, “and wearing cowboy boots is just another way to embrace Santa Fe and the Southwest, where I live now.”
Putting his family name on the city’s newest art museum is another way he is embracing his Southwestern home.
The Halpin Building, a cavernous, 20,000-square-foot structure with a basement, a deteriorating wood floor and a mural painted on an exterior wall facing Guadalupe Street, will be encased with a new light-filled third floor, according to design plans. Two additions to the old building will be removed.
The project will add 15,000 square feet to the facility.
The essence of the old building will be preserved, said Devendra Contractor, a representative of Albuquerque architectural firm DNCA, which also has been involved in other contemporary projects in Santa Fe, including Railyard galleries.
“The raw industrial quality of it will be preserved,” Contractor said of the building, “but also enhanced to reflect a contemporary art museum.”
The fate of the mural — by artist Gilberto Guzman, who was named in October as one of Santa Fe’s Living Treasures — has not been resolved, he said.
Work could begin on the museum project early next year, Contractor said, with completion expected a year later.
An economic report on the project released last year by O’Donnell Economics and Strategy suggests the contemporary art museum could attract 61,000 annual visits, most from outside Santa Fe, and create $20 million in annual economic activity.
Located on the opposite side of the Railyard from SITE Santa Fe, said state Cultural Affairs Secretary Veronica Gonzales, Vladem Contemporary “will bookend the district in the best way possible. The expansion of the museum to this second venue will bring a higher level of focus to contemporary art.”