For Art Basel 2008 coverage, visit Buildings and Food.
Monday January 14, 2008
Carnival Center renamed the Arsht Center
On Friday, the performing arts center previously known as Carnival dropped the bomb: it had received a $30 million donation from one Adrienne Arsht, and would now be forever after known as the Arsht Center. Well, actually, the official name is the “Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts of Miami-Dade County.” Observations, bullet-point style:
- I think the name is great. The 11-word “real” name is so grotesque that it will never again be uttered, and “Arsht Center” has a nice snappy ring to it, so don’t even go there. (Oops, they went there.)
- There’s the logo, cleaned up as best as I could manage from the photo accompanying the Herald story. It seems to boldly proclaim that the avant-garde implications the first season at the center have been thoroughly and permanently quashed. I actually doubt this is true, and so I hope this is just an ad-hoc logo and they’re working on something a little less generic.
- What’s up with a .com or a .org? If they’ve secured these domains, a nice “website coming” splash would have been helpful, and if not, I’d think that the negotiations would be a lot more, err.. difficult, now: “Hey, we just got $30 million, and we need to buy your domain.”
- It’s very difficult to sound humble on an occasion like this, and Adrienne Arsht didn’t bother trying. Her speech began: “As I look around, it’s clear that I stand here on the shoulders of giants. And what I hope I have accomplished in making this gift is that my shoulders become those which you stand on to take this farther.” Here’s a nice profile on her.
- $30 million is serious money. Of that, Carnival is taking back $10 million of its original donation (That’s very big of you guys. Carnival still sucks.), and $14 million goes to Miami-Dade county government to repay a loan (so why are they added to the name? And what’s with the huffiness?). But what it does show is that there is serious philanthropic money in Miami, boding well, one would think, for the MAM building.
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I know it’s just a string of six zeroes, but you might want to edit that first paragraph so the donation is properly evaluated at $30 MILLION, not $30.
I like this. Never, never liked the Carnival Center, althought always said that “carnival” (in the Caribbean sense) was an appropriate moniker. And yes, what a shitty move from Carnival to take back their 10 mil.
Arsht is a first-class citizen we should have more of.
Speaking of which, boo on Frank Houston and the New Times for not being able to get over their trademark snark with the easy joke (boo also on the Herald for their “Performing Arshts”). We are such an inmature city that the two main papers have to include moronic puns in their coverage. The lady is a class act. It’s her name, get used to it.
Oh, and the “huffiness”. In the Circle Of Barely Trained Monkeys we call county commission, Souto would be the worst if it wasn’t for Natacha. I would not believe he had the gall to call his not being on the loop a “lack of respect” except that from Souto and his inflated ego you can expect anything (this is the guy who intimated Castro and Chavez were funding the strong-mayor campaign to take away their fiefdoms). It wasn’t “lack of respect” Mr. Souto, it’s the amount of respect you have earned.
Alex, you’re holding a corporation to the standards of a philathropist. Carnival was paying that 10mil for naming rights, which have now been superseded by Arsht’s gift. The two are not the same.
Yes, businesses can be philanthropic as well, agreed. And wouldn’t it have been nice for CCL to feel the pump of good corporate citizenship. But the naming rights which CCL held were not based on philanthropy. They were a business deal, pure and simple. To try to change that is disingenuous.
News of that gift is echoing across the country. It’s a great moment in philanthropy generally, as well as for the Center and the community. The surly minority muttering in the cloakroom should be hauled out and horsewhipped.
You are right Nonee. They paid naming rights for the exposure it brings, it was a business decision and now they are getting a refund. But here’s the thing; 20 mil for the exposure was cheap to begin with, and taking 10 back makes them look like the cheapskates in public perception, which is what they were trying to influence in the first place. If I’m Arison I don’t want to be upstaged by Arsht.
(Of course we don’t know what went on behind the scenes. And also of course, you can argue that Carnival got mostly bad publicity from their association with the beleaguered PAC, so they are just cutting their losses)
I commend Mrs. Arsht! We should definitely have more Miami residents like her. As for the newspapers making fun of her last name Shame on you!
This is great, for the first time since I can remember a Corporate Branded public building has been reclaimed by the citizens and named for a real person rather than an as an advertisement for some dumb cell phone or sports drink.
So how are they going to fix the parking, a/c and other problems? 30 million goes very quickly . . .
real person rather than an as an advertisement for some dumb cell phone or sports drink.
Personally, I cant wait to see the name changing over the next few years. I can see it now, Shaquille O’neal Center For the performing arts …we could call it the SHAQ PAC!
This is a great thing. The performing arts center needed the money BIG TIME, and sorry, but Carnival center sounded like some cheap theme park theater you find in the outskirts of Disney or something. Kuddos to Ms. Arsht.
Giving a name to a cultural center because of money or business is really stupid. Dealing with art or culture is about brain and soul. These guys needs to learn a lot about that.
What happen if someone else show up in the future with $40 millions?
Absolutely insane.