Met, Whitney finalize Breuer building lease

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has finalized a deal to lease the Whitney Museum of American Art’s Upper East Side building when the Whitney opens its Meatpacking District location in 2015, the Wall Street Journal reported. The long-anticipated deal comes as the Whitney prepares to break ground on its new, $680 million Renzo Piano-designed facility on Gansevoort Street later this month. The Met, which will take the Whitney’s Marcel Breuer building at 945 Madison Avenue for eight years with the option to extend, plans to use the space to house its modern and contemporary art collections. The Whitney had avoided selling the Breuer building to raise cash for its new downtown home thanks to a $131 million gift by its former chairman, the cosmetics mogul Leonard Lauder. [WSJ]