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Miss. art museum relocation awaits FEMA, insurance monies

Leaders who run Biloxi’s Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art are reluctantly considering abandoning its incomplete and storm-damaged beachfront site designed by acclaimed architect Frank Gehry. They could end up moving the museum to downtown Biloxi, perhaps to the library building.

No final decision will be made until monies due from private insurance and the Federal Emergency Management Agency are received.

At the time Katrina hit, about $20 million had been invested in the new museum.

“Everybody involved with the museum would love to see it right where it is and completed,” said Jerry O’Keefe, chairman of its finance committee, “but we have to locate the money before we can make the decision. In the meantime, we are going to be looking at all of our options, including the city’s offer.”

Biloxi Mayor A.J. Holloway said the city did not initiate any offer to the museum, but responded to a museum representative’s query about relocating the museum to the library. It is now operating in a city-owned historic house on Glenn L. Swetman Drive.

The museum’s leadership board recently voted to do nothing about either location right now.

“We decided we would continue on in a holding pattern and do everything possible to go to the beach if the resources are available,” said board President Larry Clark. “The will of the people in that meeting was we want to try to continue to see this thing through.”

Architect Gehry pledged to help. In an e-mail received from Gehry Partners in California, the firm said it “continues to support the plan to continue the construction of the Ohr-O’Keefe Museum on the original site on U.S. 90. We will aid in the planning of the completion of construction and in any other way that moves the project forward.” The company said Frank Gehry would personally help the museum with any fundraising to help finish the project.