The Museum of Contemporary Art in North Miami will not return to its Wynwood annex, MOCA at Goldman Warehouse, which closed for the summer in June.

``The lease is up this month [September], but the economic uncertainty means that it would not be prudent of us to sign on for another three to four years,'' MOCA director Bonnie Clearwater says.

MOCA will begin the long-planned expansion of its North Miami headquarters in 2010. ``So we need to be focusing on that,'' Clearwater says.

The Wynwood annex opened in 2005, staking a presence in the burgeoning visual-arts district, which is home to numerous private art collections and galleries.

MOCA presented 13 group and solo exhibitions at the warehouse and was especially active during Art Basel Miami Beach. Museum administrators also used the space for storage.

But Clearwater now has alternatives for storing the museum's collection, and, like many cultural nonprofits, MOCA needs to cut expenses.

MOCA risks losing annual funding from Miami-Dade under Mayor Carlos Alvarez's spending plan, currently under review by the Board of County Commissioners.

Clearwater recently reduced workloads of two employees and in December trimmed about 15 percent, or $640,000, from the museum's annual budget of $4.3 million. MOCA leased the Wynwood space for free from the father-and-son development team of Tony and Joey Goldman, but Clearwater says programming and operating the space cost more than $100,000 a year.

MOCA's other cost-saving measures include more exhibitions curated from its permanent collection and shorter runs per show.

``I think there's only one less show than we did last year,'' Clearwater says, ``but the kind of programming and exhibitions we've offered will continue.''

-- DANIEL CHANG

PETERS IN LINEUP

Bernadette Peters will lend her talents to Arts Odyssey: A Collaboration, a joint fundraiser for the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts and its resident companies, Florida Grand Opera, Miami City Ballet and New World Symphony.

Arts Odyssey is scheduled for Nov. 13-14, aboard the luxury liner Seabourn Odyssey, the newest ship in the Yachts of Seabourn fleet. Organizers expect to raise about $1 million, to be shared evenly among the Arsht Center and the resident companies.

-- DANIEL CHANG

FREE CULTURE

Nothing's better than free, right? Some South Florida museums and organizations have signed on to Smithsonian magazine's fifth annual Museum Day on Saturday by emulating the Smithsonian Institution's free-admission policy.

Visit the Boca Raton Museum of Art, the Historical Museum of Southern Florida, the University of Miami's Lowe Art Museum, Miami Art Museum, Miami Metrozoo, Miami Science Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art in North Miami, The Frost Art Museum at Florida International University and The Wolfsonian -- FIU on Miami Beach.

Nationally, some 1,200 museums will participate. Print out admission slips good for two people at: http://microsite.smithsonianmag.com/museumday/admission.html.

-- Miami Herald Staff

FREEDOM TOWER

The city of Miami Community Relations Board will present free screenings of House of Freedom, Tower of Dreams, a documentary that traces the history of Miami's Freedom Tower since its construction in 1924 and showcases the historical, emotional and social significance it has acquired through the years.

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