It would mean the closure of the Tramway as an internationally renowned venue. Leading artists and gallery owners described the move as "vandalism" and "a tragedy", and promised a campaign to save it.

One said it would be a "great loss to Scotland".

Only three years ago, £3.5m of public money was spent on a major refurbishment of the Tramway. Scottish Ballet is now seeking extra National Lottery funding to transform the Tramway 2 space into rehearsal rooms and office facilities.

The Tramway has launched the careers of award-winning Scottish artists, such as Douglas Gordon and Christine Borland, and is regarded as having been an inspiration for other arts venues across the UK, such as Tate Modern.

Campaigners said losing the 13-year-old venue would irreparably damage Glasgow's reputation as the UK's second city of visual art, after London.

Scottish Ballet has searched for a new home for years. Its base in West Princes Street is generally agreed to be dilapidated and unsuitable for a modern dance company. The ballet, a joint company with Scottish Opera, after looking at 200 alternative venues in the past two years, has decided the Tramway, which is run and owned by Glasgow City Council, is the ideal new site for its HQ.

A statement issued to The Herald said: "Tramway is the preferred option and we are working in close co-operation with Glasgow City Council and the Scottish Arts Council to finalise an agreement."

A Glasgow council spokesman said: "If Scottish Ballet applies to the Scottish Arts Council for funding, and are subsequently successful, we will be happy to talk to them, and other interested parties, on delivering a long-term strategy for Tramway that will take advantage of any additional public money and thus allow the venue to reach its full potential."

First opened in 1990, Tramway later underwent a £3.5m refurbishment, a process funded by £1.1m from Glasgow City Council, £2.3m from the Scottish Arts Council and a £100,000 cheque from the Glasgow Development Agency.
The performance space in Tramway 1 is to remain unchanged, but Scottish Ballet is to bid, by October, for more lottery money from the SAC for conversion work. The sale of 261 West Princes Street, base for the cash-strapped Scottish Ballet/Opera company, could raise as much as £500,000.

However, the closure has appalled artists and curators. Professor Seona Reid, director of the Glasgow School of Art and a leading member of the campaign, said: "Glasgow has developed over the last 10 to 15 years an extraordinary international reputation for the visual art. Our visual artists are operating on the world stage and that brings extraordinary value and profile to the city. Tramway is an essential element of that ecology and yet it is going to be removed. Tramway is iconic, it is known the world over, and the notion that it is going to be taken away to make it a private thing seems to me to be just vandalism. It is irreplaceable."

Urging the parties to think again, she said: "The Tramway is essential to Glasgow, Scotland and the UK as a visual arts venue."
Richard Calvocoressi, director of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, said the loss of the space would be a "tragedy". He said the Tramway had inspired the creation of the Tate Modern in London and the Baltic gallery in Newcastle. "It would be a great loss to Scotland, there is no other space like it. There is certainly nothing here in Edinburgh comparable."

Borland said: "The closure seems unthinkable. I really do not think the council could have thought this out properly. It is not just a blow to local artists, but to Glasgow's reputation as a place for international artists to come and live and exhibit."

original article : http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/880.shtml