BOZEMAN – The sale of the Emerson Lawn officially went through on Friday, when the Emerson Center for the Arts & Culture purchased the lawn from the Bozeman School District, for a closing price of $2.2751 million.
The center wasn’t quite able to come out of the purchase debt-free, falling short of its $300,000 fundraising goal, but community donors loaned the remaining money to the center for its purchase of the lawn.
Despite having some debts to repay, Community Outreach Director for the Emerson, Sonja Bahr said the community’s generosity bodes well for the Center’s future plans for the lawn.
“Yeah, you know it’s a little bit surreal,” Bahr said. “We are just so humbled by the outpouring of community support, we had over 400 donors in just a period of about four months from when we actively started fundraising until we closed so, I think that’s the really exciting thing is just how generous Bozeman was to support this project.”
The Emerson hopes to raise $1.3 million more in order to finish its development plans for the lawn, which include a semi-permanent stage and a sculpture garden.
Reporting by Kaitlin Corbett for MTN News
