New Atlanta Hall Waiting On Public Funding

The Atlanta Symphony is continuing to rack up private contributions towards its planned new concert hall in the city’s downtown district. But the space-age hall, designed by Santiago Calatrava, still faces an uphill battle, because the ASO’s request for $100 million in city and state funding has yet to result in any action. Both Atlanta’s mayor and Georgia’s governor have paid lip service to the project, but the governor won’t reveal whether he is including any funding for the project in his 2006 budget proposal, and the mayor says that the city doesn’t have “even a fraction” of the $50 million the orchestra wants.