Would
it surprise you to hear that the cultural district downtown does not include the Rochester Museum &
Science Center, Strong Museum, Memorial Art Gallery, or Geva Theatre?
“We’re going to be forming a
committee to look at that whole issue, whether it makes sense for us to expand
the boundaries more,” says City Council President Lois Giess, also a Cultural
Center Commission member.
The commission and the cultural
district were created more than 20 years ago to prevent the YMCA and Eastman
School of Music from leaving downtown. The commission has state-enabled powers,
specifically condemnation and bonding authority. There is bipartisan
representation from the city and county on the commission, and private
interests are represented, as well.
The commission sunk a significant
amount of money and effort into improving the area around the Eastman School
and the YMCA. The East End parking garage was built, streetscapes were
improved, properties were acquired, and government became a “key player,”
according to County Legislator Bill Benet, in the negotiations to keep the YMCA
and Eastman School downtown.
“We were focused very, very intently
on that specific area,” Benet says. “It had a spillover effect. That spillover
effect was the whole revitalization of the East Avenue area.”
The Little Theatre was redeveloped.
Restaurants sprang up.
“Now you have what has become the
East End, which is an extremely vibrant area,” Benet says.
The boundaries of the cultural
district are on the verge of being extended to include the Auditorium Theatre
at 875 East Main Street. The legislature approved the expansion. City Council
will vote later this month, but it appears to have the council’s backing. The
extension needs to happen to secure a five-year loan for theater improvements.
An anonymous private lender is loaning the Rochester Broadway Theatre League
— soon-to-be owners of the Auditorium Theatre — $1.6 million to pay for
enlarging the theater’s bathrooms, installing new seats, a new sound system,
and for making improvements to the main lobby areas.
The
renovations to the Auditorium Theatre have already been completed to
anticipated success, according to RBTL President Don Jeffries.
“People used to come and complain
all the time. It wasn’t a great experience,” he says. “It was great to see the
shows, but it was uncomfortable. The seats were uncomfortable. The lines in the
bathroom were so long [that] by the time intermission came around, you had a
choice, either get a drink or go to the bathroom.”
Average attendance for individual
shows has increased anywhere from 5 to 10 percent since the remodeling,
Jeffries says, and the number of season ticket holders is expected to jump, as
well. (Season tickets go on sale in April.)
“We’re seeing a lot of new faces
around,” he says. “People are real excited about it.”
The Cultural Commission is
guaranteeing the $1.6 million loan that is paying for the renovations. To do
that, the theater has to be contained in the cultural district. The commission
has never guaranteed a loan before. Arnie Rothschild, former RBTL chairman,
says that in light of current economic conditions and as less and less
government funding is available for the arts, groups like the Cultural
Commission need to be innovative.
“If government can’t fund arts,
government can do things like loan guarantees to arts organizations,” he says.
“It’s a new and evolved kind of model. In the realities of today’s economy,
what ways can we figure out to try and fund this renovation?”
The loan will be paid back over a
five-year period. The yearly payment escalates until year five, when a $300,000
payment is due, along with a $400,000 balloon payment for the balance of the
loan.
Putting the
commission in the position to guarantee the loan shouldn’t compromise the body at all,
Benet says.
“Those funds are non-pledged funds.
They’re not needed for something else,” he says. “Pretty much everything that
was envisioned to be constructed… has either been constructed or is in the
works.”
The city-county partnership which is
the basis of the commission says to Benet that the loan is a good risk.
“I have a lot of confidence that
they’ve done their due diligence on the loan. And I respect that,” he says.
“Bill Coppard [head of the commission] and the blend of city and county people
that make up the Cultural Center Commission… that gives me a certain degree of
confidence that it’s not somebody pulling the wool over my eyes.”
The fact that some of the
commission’s money will be tied up over the life of the loan doesn’t bother
Giess, either.
“This is an important project for
the community,” she says. “The Cultural Commission was put together to enhance
the city’s cultural assets. I think it’s true to mission.”
The commission is using its East End
Garage reserve fund to guarantee the loan. The purpose of the fund is to
maintain the garage, but it can be used in other ways, too, like making loans
to develop properties. The commission, for instance, loaned $1.5 million from
the reserve fund to Sagamore on East, LLC for the 107,000-square-foot Sagamore
on East mixed-housing project slated for East Avenue.
“We recognize that the assets of the
garage have some leverage,” Giess says.
The move to
extend the boundaries of the cultural district has not raised many eyebrows, at least
in the county legislature. The measure sailed through committee with only one
hitch. Republican Ray Santirocco was concerned about how the future downtown
performing arts center would impact the Auditorium Theatre and how the two
venues would co-exist in this market. (Santirocco has since withdrawn his
objections to the cultural district extension.)
There is a real need for theater
space in Rochester, Jeffries says, and the venues will complement each other.
“Right now, because our Broadway
shows run 10 to 12 nights, there’s a lot of times people would like to use the
theater where they can’t,” he says.
Recently, RBTL had the opportunity
to book Blues legend BB King to perform at the Auditorium the first week in
February.
“We couldn’t, because we had a
Broadway show in here,” Jeffries says.
With the addition of the performing
arts center, Jeffries says, the community can have both.
“BB King is not going to be the
kind, in my opinion, that can fill the War Memorial, but he can fill the
Auditorium,” he says. “This way, we’d be able to do both. That’s a totally
different crowd that’s going to go to the BB King show or going to see Le Miz.”
RBTL is trying to reschedule King.
So the
Auditorium Theatre is in, but what about Geva? Or RMSC? Or Strong Museum? Or the
Memorial Art Gallery?
“When you think about it, [they’re]
all right there, just on the outskirts of the cultural district,” Benet says.
“Maybe at this point in time it might be good to take another look and see if
we could broaden the district a little bit. That would further strengthen the
southeast cultural quadrant.”
The commission is going to be
forming a committee, Giess says, to study further extending the boundaries.
But, she says, the challenge is money. The area around the Eastman School was
improved because of a significant influx of cash. Without a bunch of money to
invest, she says, there may not be much value in expanding the district.
“We have limited assets. If there
was this wonderful infusion of money, I think it would be a good vehicle,” she
says. “But I don’t see an infusion of money on the horizon, so I’m not sure how
much value it would give to the space we might expand to.”
This article appears in Jan 21-27, 2004.
