Slow growing

Years behind schedule, a visionary project being built on donated land, with federal, state and private funds, needs a lot more money to reach completion. We’re not describing the American Indian Museum and Cultural Center in Oklahoma City but the Oklahoma Centennial Botanical Garden in Tulsa. Garden management now says it could take 10 to 20 years more to finish the project than the 10 originally promised. As is the case with the Indian museum, funding is the main reason for the delays. The museum here will get an infusion of private money but only if the state agrees to pony up more funds. One thing that differentiates the two projects is that they aren’t caught up in the capital envy Tulsans sometimes exhibit over public projects in Oklahoma City. Tulsans want a state-funded cultural museum as a condition of more state funding for the Indian museum. Oklahoma City isn’t insisting that a garden project here get the same attention from the state that the Tulsa project has received.

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