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Case Study: Katonah Museum of Art
Founded more than 50 years ago in the northern Westchester community of Katonah, the Katonah Museum of Art (KMA) is a non-collecting facility devoted to changing exhibitions and educational programs. The KMA originally engaged Beckelman+Capalino to craft a Vision Plan that articulated a direction for a sustainable and realistically achievable future. Working with the Executive Director, Board Members, Staff and stakeholders B+C analyzed KMA’s strengths, weaknesses and assets to determine anticipated facility needs. B+C’s previous experience with similar organizations, along with Mimi Taft’s five year public relations consulting engagement with the organization made B+C a natural fit for this project.
The Vision Plan identified a need for the institution to enhance access to its site for use by the community and to create additional space for exhibitions and public programming. To address these needs B+C worked with the KMA, a small committee, and the architecture firm Weiss/Manfredi to develop a schematic site plan. This schematic design phase examined opportunities to take advantage of the KMA’s close proximity to the Town and at the juncture of two green belts; to make the site more welcoming, identifiable and accessible to the community; and to consider new settings for the public display of art and spaces where public programming could be hosted.
The schematic design phase was successfully completed and was presented to the Board of Trustees and the Board of Overseers for approval. The design development phase refined the schematic design and received the full approval of the Town of Bedford’s Town Board and Zoning Board. KMA is now moving forward with construction documents which will be presented for approval to Town Planning Board which has already preliminarily approved the project. B+C is managing all aspects of these phases for the KMA and is also working with the KMA Development staff to create a strategy for a Capital Campaign to cultivate support for realizing this $8 to $10 million dollar project.