[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1_GarySextonPhotography.jpg?w=1024″]<\/p>\n
\n\tThe Contemporary Jewish Museum (CJM) in San Francisco announced this week that it will look to sell its building in the city\u2019s Yerba Buena Gardens neighborhood, which also includes some of the city\u2019s other top cultural organizations.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe decision to sell is part of \u201ca series of strategic steps to ensure a sustainable and impactful future for The Museum,\u201d according to a release, which includes stabilizing the organization\u2019s finances and ensuring that its endowments are not drained. The release also noted that this \u201cnew vision\u201d for the CJM will allow for \u201cgreater flexibility and ensure a viable operating model.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tFounded in 1984, the CJM has been closed to the public since December 2024, and in those 15 months it has reduced its operating budget from $7.5 million to $3 million, allowing it to reduce its debt by half to under $14 million, according to a report by the San Francisco Chronicle<\/em>, which first reported the news. Its closure also saw a pause in the museum\u2019s programming and a reduction in its staff by some 80 percent.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cWe explored many options, and what became clearest to us was that our building is beyond our capacity,\u201d CJM executive director Kerry King told ARTnews<\/em> in an email. \u201cMy top priority, and the top priority of the board, is to ensure that The Contemporary Jewish Museum continues to exist and serve audiences for generations to come. While listing the building for sale is a difficult step, I\u2019m also completely confident that it is the right one for the organization as a whole.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tShe added, \u201cWe have an important role to play in the Bay Area, and we are committed to continuing to do that work.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tDesigned by Daniel Libeskind, the architect behind the Jewish Museum Berlin, and opened in 2008, the CJM\u2019s current home measures 63,000 square feet and features a blue cube that serves as an intervention into the historic power station that Libeskind adapted for use as a museum.<\/p>\n \n\tIt will be publicly listed next week. The asking price will not be included in the listing, which \u201cis common practice when a property is so unique,\u201d according to a museum spokesperson. In a release the museum said it would look for a buyer who would be \u201ccomplementary\u201d to the neighborhood\u2019s other cultural offerings, which include the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and the Museum of the African Diaspora.<\/p>\n \n\tThe CJM is the last Bay Area institution to be affected by rising costs in the region, though the most high-profile instances have been limited to art schools. In 2022, the San Francisco Art Institute permanently closed, after several years of declining enrollment and multiple failed mergers with other universities. It ultimately filed for bankruptcy in 2023, with the sale of its campus being one way to help repay its mountain of debts. In 2024, Laurene Powell Jobs, one of the country\u2019s top collectors, bought SFAI\u2019s campus for $30 million, announcing she would use it as an arts institution.<\/p>\n \n\tThis past January brought news that the California College of Arts would close next year and that Vanderbilt University had purchased the campus for an undisclosed price.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cAt a time when arts organizations and nonprofits across the country\u2014and in the Bay Area in particular\u2014are struggling, taking an operational pause was\u00a0both\u00a0essential\u00a0and beneficial to us,\u201d King said in her email. \u201cWe are continuing to refine our vision, and will focus more directly on using contemporary art to interpret and shape Jewish experience. Today\u2019s news is not easy, but it is an important step on the way to an exciting and promising future for The CJM.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n [analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/art-news\/news\/contemporary-jewish-museum-san-francisco-building-sale-1234778138\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1_GarySextonPhotography.jpg?w=1024″] The Contemporary Jewish Museum (CJM) in San Francisco announced this week that it will look to sell its building in the city\u2019s Yerba Buena Gardens neighborhood, which also includes some of the city\u2019s other top cultural organizations. The decision to sell is part of \u201ca series of strategic steps to ensure a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,226],"class_list":["post-1835495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-artnews-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1835495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1835495"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1835495\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1835495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1835495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1835495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}