A N.C. Arts Council’s $83-Million Drive Rolls On Despite Economy’s Plunge

The Arts & Science Council knew it wouldn’t be easy to pull off its 25-year cultural master plan to build new museums and a performing arts center. That wasn’t even counting the worst thing that eventually did go wrong: the recession and banking crisis that struck just two years into the council’s $83-million fundraising campaign, imploding its biggest corporate supporter and freezing philanthropists’ checkbooks.

Yet today Charlotte’s business district boasts three new art museums, a performing-arts theater and a remodeled children’s science museum.