Fantastic figures shape Tate Modern’s birthday

The most popular modern art museum in the world celebrated its first birthday on 11 May by announcing figures to make gallery directors and council members turn green with envy all over the world. The total investment in the Tate Modern is estimated at £135 million, £56.3 million of which came from lottery funding. The 5.25 million visitors in Tate Modern’s first year means the estimated economic benefit of the gallery is £100 million, the project has created 3,000 jobs in London, with half these positions held by local employees in Southwark. The number of hotel and catering businesses in the area around Tate Modern has increased by 23% from 1997-2000. Southwark council acknowledges the rapid rate of rise in property prices and commercial investment levels as a great return on its initial £1.5 million grant. Now the Bankside urban study carried out by Richard Rogers Partnership proposes capitalising on and extending the transformation wrought by the arrival of this international phenomenon in a run-down part of South London.