Turns out even before Detroit got an emergency manager and fell into bankruptcy, the city considered selling off the DIA to help shore up its finances and protect the art.
Nathan Bomey and Mark Stryker of the Detroit Free Press write that city officials quietly formulated a proposal in late 2011 to sell the city-owned DIA to nonprofit foundations for $550 million to create cash flow for the city, fund museum operations and transfer ownership so the art could never be sold to pay city debt.
The Freep writes:
The plan — according to records obtained by the Free Press and never publicly revealed — bears a striking resemblance to this year’s grand bargain designed to protect the DIA and shore up municipal pensions. It is the core of emergency manager Kevyn Orr’s bankruptcy restructuring plan for the city.
The grand bargain created a fund of $816 million over 20 years pledged by foundations, the state and DIA donors. The money is meant to help city pensions but only if the DIA and all of its artwork is rolled into an independent nonprofit forever shielded from city finances.
