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Posted: Wednesday, 26 August 2009 11:07AM
Museum to honor Michael Jackson takes new turn
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GARY, Ind (STING) -- A New York City firm that wanted to build a museum honoring Michael Jackson in Gary has abandoned the project citing silence from City Hall, and the man picked by Gary Mayor Rudy Clay to lead a stalled renovation of the former Sheraton Hotel is moving in.
Phillip Kupritz of the New Gary Development Group said Tuesday he is working with Jackson Museum Performing Arts Center Corp., a firm that incorporated last month in Illinois and launched the Web site www.jacksonmuseum.org, to raise money.
Visitors to the Web site can hear the voice of a young Michael Jackson singing "I'll Be There." The site touts plans to build a Jackson performing arts center that would feature an auditorium and concert hall. It would serve as an educational and entertainment institution focused on the contributions of the Jackson Family to the music industry and culture.
Developers are looking at possible locations in Las Vegas, Chicago or Gary, according to the Web site. However, Kupritz said a consensus reached at a weekend birthday party in Tinley Park for Joe Jackson, Michael Jackson's father, will bring the museum to Gary.
"The city of Gary is the place it's going to go," Kupritz said.
The Jackson museum would not be connected to the Sheraton project, Kupritz said, though there are plans to build it downtown. He declined to give a specific location.
Jackson Museum Performing Arts Center Corp. was incorporated in Illinois on July 13, according to the Illinois Secretary of State's office. Michael Jackson died June 25. Its Web site lists Parson Enterprises LLC as its Web developer.
Records list Odie Anderson of Tinley Park as an agent for Jackson Museum Performing Arts Center Corp., and Harry Parson III as an agent for Parson Enterprises. Neither could be reached Tuesday for comment.
Richard Coles, the principal of New York-based Emmes Group, visited City Hall two weeks ago pitching plans to build a museum at the Village Shopping Center. His company owns the property there, and he said funding is in place to make the project happen.
But the company hasn't heard from Gary leaders since that meeting, Coles said, and it's been forced to move in another direction with its properties.
"It seems that Gary, Indiana, has yet again missed a valuable opportunity to make something of its city," Coles said Tuesday.
Kupritz was introduced to Gary in February 2007 when the Mayor announced a plan to turn the dilapidated former Sheraton Hotel into a mixed-use development of retail and senior citizen housing powered by corn and heated with geothermal energy.
The New Gary Development Group, a Chicago-based team of investors led by Kupritz, succeeded in removing 98 percent of the asbestos that was in the building when the plan was announced. It did that work using a $735,000 federal brownfield loan.
Activity at the empty building has been virtually non-existent since that accomplishment in October. An IDEM spokeswoman confirmed last week that her agency's inspectors haven't returned for further review.
Kupritz and city leaders say the national economic recession has hampered efforts to renovate the Sheraton, freezing up money that would have otherwise been available to the investors.
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Copyright 2009 STNG Wire, The Chicago Sun-Times. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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