OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) – A shell of a museum that sits unfinished along the banks of the Oklahoma River near downtown Oklahoma City could get the final boost of funding needed to complete a vision that state policymakers first had two decades ago.

If the $25 million bond plan is approved during the final weeks of the legislative session, the state will wash its hands of the American Indian Cultural Center and Museum project that has proved to be a $90 million thorn in the Republican Legislature’s side. The capital city, meanwhile, will inherit a potential moneymaker in a booming corridor of economic development.

But a major obstacle still looms: reaching an agreement with Oklahoma City to take over responsibility for operating and maintaining the 173,000-square-foot structure once its doors finally open — a daunting prospect that city officials had never envisioned.

“We were not asking for the operations for this facility,” City Manager Jim Couch said.

The proposal also calls for the city to take title to the building once all state bond obligations have been paid, something city officials are not sure is even feasible.

“There’s a lot of unanswered questions about it at this point,” Couch said.

Legislative leaders didn’t outline the bond proposal to city officials until May 7, Couch said, less than a week before House Speaker Jeff Hickman unveiled bond issues for both the American Indian museum and a separate $25 million bond issue to build the Oklahoma Museum of Popular Culture in Tulsa. Both bond proposals won legislative committee approval and are awaiting action by the full House and Senate before the constitutionally mandated adjournment date of May 29.

“There have been no negotiations,” Couch said. “We’re disappointed in the process. That isn’t generally how we do business. I thank the speaker from coming up with a plan. We’re disappointed with the plan.”

But Hickman said negotiations are premature until lawmakers pass the measure that establishes a framework for how the complex transaction would take place.

“That’s the point of the bill, it sets up that process to happen,” Hickman said. “This merely puts the state in a position to engage in negotiations.”

Construction on the museum began in 2006. Officials say it is about two-thirds complete, but has sat dormant since 2012, when the project ran out of money and the Legislature refused to allocate new funds. The state has already spent about $90 million on it — about $7 million a year on the structure, $5 million for payments on previously authorized construction bonds and about $2 million for security and maintenance.

Supporters have touted the bonding plan as a way to finally rid the state of a project originally conceived in 1994, when the Legislature created the Native American Cultural & Educational Authority to develop plans and look for a site for the proposed museum.

Oklahoma City will benefit from completion of the museum and the proposal’s requirement that about 143 acres that surround it would be transferred to the city for economic development, Hickman said. Lease revenue from that development would be used to help operate the museum.

“Those are two things we could do to be of great benefit to the city,” Hickman said, who added that the bonding plan is “our only option.”

Previous completion plans called for the state to issue an additional $40 million in bonds which would be matched by another $40 million from private sources, including tribal governments, Oklahoma corporations and a $9 million from Oklahoma City.

The proposal currently under consideration leaves an obvious funding gap, Couch said, which Hickman countered by saying some original elements of the project’s design will either be deferred or paid for by private donors.

But those private donors may have second thoughts about the level of their participation now that the Legislature has reduced state funding, Couch said.

“Is the $40 million still there?” Couch said.

City officials have until until Jan. 15, 2016, to reach an agreement with the state. If no agreement is reached, the plan will not be put in place, according to legislative leaders.

“We’d have to do some due diligence,” Couch said. “And we don’t have to agree to it.”