Jordan Schnitzer, the Portland real estate developer and philanthropist, will give $5 million to Portland State University to open an art museum in the heart of campus.
The school and the Portland native announced the gift during a Thursday morning news conference. The 7,500-square-foot art museum will bear Schnitzer's name and occupy parts of two floors of Neuberger Hall.
PSU is planning a $70 million renovation of the building, backed by $60 million in state bonds approved by the Oregon Legislature in 2015. Construction is expected to begin this summer and finish in 2019. The school still needs to raise another $5 million from donors to pay for the project.
In an interview, Schnitzer said he's familiar with the building from his drives along Southwest Broadway through campus. "It's pretty dismal going by that concrete bunker," he said in an interview. "It looks like a prison."
"Now it's going to be transformed into an energetic transparent part of the community."
Jordan Schnitzer talks June 8, 2017, about his $5 million gift to open an art museum on the Portland State University campus.
The museum would be the third such facility on a Pacific Northwest campus funded in part by Schnitzer, president of Harsch Investment Properties.
The University of Oregon, Schnitzer's alma mater, and Washington State University, also received millions from the developer to open art museums. Schnitzer said he gave UO $2.5 million more than a decade ago to help pay for its $14 million expansion, a project he pursued for more than a quarter-century. The museum in Pullman, backed by $5 million from Schnitzer, is expected to open next year.
Schnitzer said Thursday that he has the largest post-contemporary collection of art prints in the world and that the joy of having that collection is "only exceeded by the joy I have in sharing the work." He prefers to share his exhibitions for free, saying that art is crucial to the culture.
He described art as an inspiration and source of hope in what can often be a dark world: "The arts have always been the best that we are as human beings."
Schnitzer heaped praise on outgoing PSU President Wim Wiewel for transforming the school, calling him the best president in the school's history, who "put his stamp" on every corner of the urban campus.
The ground-floor of the museum will have a classroom named in honor of Wim and Alice Wiewel, Schnitzer said, and an endowed museum curator whose salary will be paid for by the donation.
Schnitzer said PSU approached him three months ago with the pitch for the museum, and he was immediately "thrilled with the design."
Wiewel, who is leaving his post as president at the end of the school year but will remain on faculty, praised Schnitzer for helping shape the city of Portland "physically and culturally."
-- Andrew Theen