Republicans in New Jersey are calling for an investigation into the Centre Pompidou‘s planned Jersey City outpost, decrying both the museum itself and the structure of its funding.
The museum, formally known as the Centre Pompidou x Jersey City, is one of many satellites run by the Parisian art museum, which is due to close in 2025 for a multiyear renovation. Plans for ones in Seoul and Saudi Arabia were recently made official; ones in Brussels, Shanghai, and Málaga, Spain, are already in operation.
With a design by the architecture firm OMA, the museum will occupy 58,000 square feet and will be sited in Journal Square, in an area reachable by the PATH train from New York City. Initially expected to open in 2024, it is now slated to begin welcoming visitors in 2026.
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Republican state senator Michael Testa has taken issue with the budget for the project, according to New Jersey Monitor, which reported that he has officially asked the New Jersey Republicans to review the museum.
Testa, who represents Cumberland County in southern New Jersey, released a memorandum from one Republican lawmaker which claimed that state officials had pegged the Pompidou’s museum could cost more than $200 million. The lawmaker, budget director Tom Neff, alleged that taxpayers would be putting $58 million toward the project, which he accused of “gross excess and waste.”
Neff specifically said the Pompidou’s satellite was not comparable to two nearby institutions, the New Jersey State Museum and the Newark Museum of Art, which he described as being “more modest in scope and focus on American works of art and New Jersey history.” He seemed to imply the Centre Pompidou x Jersey City would center French art.
Although the Pompidou would be able to show works from its collection at the Jersey City institution, the museum has not said the space would be devoted to French art.
In his memo, Neff said that the project was guilty of “State largesse without any meaningful oversight; Jersey City not having to raise the bulk of the money needed to pay for its own project; and possibly the influence of pay-to-play vendor arrangements.”
A Centre Pompidou spokesperson did not reply to a request for comment.
Because the Centre Pompidou x Jersey City is now set to open in 2026, it will be inaugurated after the end of third term of its initiator, Democratic mayor Steven Fulop.
A spokesperson for Fulop told New Jersey Monitor that Testa was “well-intentioned but, unfortunately, ignorant” in his claims against the project. “Perhaps he should be more careful to get his facts in order before embarrassing himself,” the spokesperson said.