Minnesota Museum of American Art director Kristin Makholm. Photo by Rik Sferra.

The Minnesota Museum of American Art, in partnership with the City of St. Paul, has received a grant of $150,000 from the National Endowment for the Arts to help it plan and pre-design new quarters in the Pioneer-Endicott building, an 1889 - 1890 complex at Fourth and Robert Streets in St. Paul's Lowertown neighborhood.

Closed since January 2009, the museum hopes to re-open on a part time basis in fall 2012.

The grant is one of 80 Our Town awards the NEA is distributing in an effort to use arts projects as catalysts for urban renewal. The 80 grants total $4.995 million and have gone to 44 states and the District of Columbia. All the grants involve partnerships between nonprofit orgranizations and local government.