And then there were five

Since
talk of a large performing arts center began nearly 15 years ago, there’s been
no shortage of public-private committees organized around the effort. At one
time, there seemed to be a firm plan for a three-theater complex located at
Midtown Plaza. (See the Erica Curtis article, “Looking for a room of their
own,” in this issue for more background on the arts center deliberations.)

            Then came the proposal to build a
performing arts center in the Renaissance Square project planned for the
northwest corner Main and Clinton. The idea, as it stands, is to incorporate a
bus terminal, Monroe Community College satellite campus, and performing arts
center into one central downtown location.

            In early June, Monroe County
Executive Maggie Brooks announced the formation of the five-person Main &
Clinton Development Corporation to “spearhead” the Renaissance Square project.
The corporation consists of Brooks, Rochester Mayor Bill Johnson, MCC President
Tom Flynn, Rochester-Genesee Regional Transit Authority Chief Executive Mark
Aesch, and Greater Rochester Arts and Cultural Council President Sarah Lentini.

            In a recent interview with City Newspaper, Lentini described how
she’s still feeling her way on the young corporation as a representative of the
many local arts groups who could become tenants of a new arts center. She also
discussed the decisions the corporation will face — from determining an
operating structure to paying for construction and operating expenses — when
it comes to building an arts center. An edited transcript of that interview
follows.

City: How would you describe the Arts and Cultural Council’s role
in the community? What is it you guys do? What’s your mission?

            Lentini: The Arts and
Cultural Council is an umbrella organization and a membership organization for
all the arts — visual, performance, literary — in the 10-county Greater
Rochester and Finger Lakes area. We have roughly 1,000 members. And we have a
variety of roles: a funder, a convener, a planner, an advocate, a service
provider. If I had to distill our mission into its simplest form, I would say
it is to strengthen the cultural community and to promote it.

            As the umbrella organization for all
of the arts, as the only organization in Rochester that represents all of the
arts, locally we have a unique role. If you’re looking for one organization, we
become the logical place.

            City:
So how does that fit in with your
role on the five-person corporation overseeing the Renaissance Square project?
Are you included in talks about the other aspects of the Renaissance Square
plan — the bus terminal or the MCC campus?

            Lentini:
Certainly any significant effort to both address but also to help promote
and make visible the high-caliber arts organizations in our community is
representative of our mission. And as far as this small corporation is
concerned, well, we’ve just started. We’ve had one meeting.

            Part of what I need to understand
better is my role and responsibilities as they pertain to the arts center
portion and the project as a whole. I need to understand what I’ve agreed to.
And I need to understand my role well. I want to make sure I understand the
sort of corporation it is and what sort of rules apply, for me as someone who
has taken a stewardship role. I’m in the process of getting a better
understanding.

            So far, what I see as my role on the
group is to continue to work with — at a minimum — the key arts
organizations in our community and membership who have already expressed
interest in the performing arts center. I’ve got to continue to get input and
feedback from them and to them, and act as a liaison between those key arts
groups and the table.

            There is strong interest on the part
of everyone sitting around the table, but especially the County Executive and
the Mayor, in having the corporation augmented by auxiliary structures that
would really start to compile community dialog and community input. There are
conversations about structures that have to emerge beyond the five or six
people who have been pulled together.

            City:
How often are you guys going to meet?

            Lentini: We’ve talked
about doing it every two weeks. So, right now, that looks to be the plan.

            City:And what about all this talk about a
downtown casino? Part of that proposal includes the construction of a
2,800-seat performing arts venue. What sort of impact has this stuff had on
your discussions?

            Lentini:
We haven’t talked about the casino — not directly, not formally, not at
any table meeting I’ve been to. It emerged so prominently in the media only
recently. In fact, things really didn’t start to come out until after our first
meeting, so it wasn’t a topic for discussion. And no one has shared a proposal
with us.

            When it comes to the casino, my main
source of information has been the media. And I would have to see some more
detail to feel informed enough to form an opinion.

            A reporter from WXXI recently called
me about this. He was telling me that New York State and the federal government
potentially have the ability to make this happen without much role or
involvement on the part of the local community. If that’s true, maybe that’s energy
better spent elsewhere.

            City:
What’s the Rochester Theatre League’s
role in the Renaissance Square discussions?

            Lentini:
RBTL is now part of this smaller group.

            For the better part of the past
year, the Arts Council convened the government, the community, and the arts
community around this topic of a performing arts center. And, more recently, we
were asked to look at the usefulness of the Main and Clinton site with a
smaller ad hoc group of arts organizations. [These discussions included
representatives from Garth Fagan Dance, RBTL, Geva Theatre, and The Eastman
School of Music.]

            We asked these groups to identify
needs, requirements, and issues that would need to be addressed by any and all
of them to feel comfortable moving forward with any kind of a downtown center.
RBTL was part of that. As I’m sitting at the corporation table, I’m also
continuing to meet with all the same organizations that were part of this Ad
Hoc Committee. They will — I hope they will — continue to be very much part
of our process.

            We spent a lot of time getting to
the point where we could make those recommendations. Everyone around the table
needed to be comfortable with the recommendations. That’s the roadmap we put
together as the path forward, for us, and to recommend to the leadership of
this community. [A PDF of the Ad Hoc Committee’s report can be downloaded at
www.artsrochester.org/news/pr0404PAc.htm]

            We feel the ad hoc group is a good
representative segment of the arts community. And they identified a need for a
2,800-seat theater, a 1,800-seat theater, and then essentially identified the
need for smaller performing arts space for smaller arts organizations. Since we
didn’t have representation from that constituency around the table, we
bookmarked it.

            That’s where the highest volume of
organizations exists. Quite a number have a need for space and an interest in
playing a part in a collective performing arts venture. But to canvass them,
well, is much more of a challenge, because there are so many. We started down a
path, but it’s much harder to pull them around a table.

            We actually put together a survey, a
starting point, an initial set of questions that we sent out to all performing
arts organizations in our database. We got a sense of the landscape from that,
but I’m hesitant to use that as a conclusion, because we didn’t have a majority
of folks responding, and surveys, by definition, are limited. To do a decent
job of understanding whether you’ve communicated well, you need to have a
dialogue.

            It certainly seemed as though there
was a need for something in the 300-seat area. Part of what we want to do now
is have conversations that are in-depth, to reach everyone in our constituency,
to see if there is a need for something between 300 and 1,800 seats. It’s
become clear to me that different disciplines have very different technical
requirements…

            We’re also coordinating, as we have
been for a year, with another effort, an initiative to turn the Cobbs Hill
Armory into a performing arts venue with multiple theaters. It’s important that
we complement that effort, and not duplicate our efforts.

City: How would you assess the financial health of the local arts
community?

            Lentini: Forget the
arts. Rochester as a whole is having a difficult time economically. It’s a hard
time for non-profits in general. And it’s a particularly tough time for the
arts community, because the arts community has functioned so leanly for so
long. It has very little fat, historically.

            The arts in this community are
really incredibly impressive, for any city, especially for a city our size…
But, still, the arts [in Rochester] historically have been under-funded,
under-funded for cities our size. Other communities have commitments to raising
money. This city doesn’t have that, never has. Even Buffalo has a better
structure in place, the last couple of years notwithstanding. There’s a good
comparison city — Buffalo has had its own version of an ongoing, fairly
comprehensive fundraising mechanism in place. And it’s both a mystery and a shame
why we don’t.

            City:Is it assumed that a new arts venue will
help increase attendance for arts events, particularly for the arts groups that
are struggling?

            Lentini:
I don’t think that’s assumed. Part of the analysis that we’re going to need
to do as we put together what is a fairly complex project is to figure out who
is really seriously interested and committed on the performing arts side in
being a part of any downtown venue or site. Then we really need to start
looking not just at development expenses, but operating expenses. We’ve got to
look at more conservative assumptions about what kind of audience any group is
likely to count on, what kind of ticket sales, what kind of revenue.

            So, while I don’t think it’s
assumed, I do think we would hope that a nicer venue — and the sheer strength
of a collective array of exciting offerings — would benefit everybody.

            At this moment, when Rochester has
so clearly identified marketing this region — whether to Toronto, or to
tourists, or to high-skilled workers — it is critically important that we not
disinvest ourselves of our great strengths. The cultural offerings in this
community are significant — museums, the Susan B. Anthony House, the Seneca
Park Zoo, Writers and Books, places like Water Street Music Hall, all the
wonderful musicians that emerge out of this community….

            I have lived in lots of cities,
including some wonderful cities in Europe, New York City (which some would
argue is one of more interesting cities in the world), and Montreal, which is a
wonderful city. And I was so delighted when I came here for the first time,
just to discover everything that was happening artistically.

            City:
Is there any sense yet of precisely
which local arts groups would benefit from a new performing arts center?

            Lentini:
I don’t think there’s anybody who’s made a hard and fast commitment to this
thing. At this point, no board would sign on. First, you need to know what the
rent is going to be. And we’re just not there yet. But all the organizations
who have been taking part in our process for the last few months certainly seem
likely to play a role. RBTL, Garth Fagan, the Eastman School…. But it would
depend on where everything is located. As you saw in our report, we proffer a
few approaches. One of those locations might draw different users than the
other.

            And the technical aspects of this
thing are enormous. There are very different technical requirements, different
stage requirements, depending on the discipline involved. It depends on how
much time and space you’re sharing. And there’s got to be some protocol for
working together, coordinating schedules, marketing.

            At the end of the day, we hope that
we can come up with some coordinated and fairly global process for promoting
events, for marketing events, for coordinating usage of space. You can have the
technical specs all set up, but there are likely to be some key tenants in the
space, and some other tenants who would use the space more sporadically.

City: So there’s been no talk about an operating structure for the
performing arts center?

            Lentini:
No. That’s one of the many things we need to talk about. Governance is one,
certainly financing the development is another — that’s kind of important.
People tend to focus on development costs as the be all and end all, but in the
end, operating costs tend to be more long-term, and ultimately a bigger number.

            City:
We know that a substantial sum of
public money has already been set aside for Renaissance Square. But is there
any sense of how much public and private money is out there to fund the rest of
it?

            Lentini:
It needs to be a blend of both. Sort of for practical but also for some
other dynamic reasons, it needs to be a blend of public and private money. We
haven’t asked anybody for any yet.

            It’s difficult to get to the
operating cost discussion when you haven’t designed the space yet, or if you
haven’t figured out who’s going to use it. There’s a little bit of the
chicken-egg thing. We need to get some basic design issues nailed down.

            City:
Does it look like the performing arts
center aspects of the Renaissance project will be built in stages, with a large
roadhouse built first at Main and Clinton, and maybe a mid-sized venue built
later somewhere else, like the Rascal site at Main and Gibbs?

            Lentini:
It’s
being approached as a complete package, not even a complete performing arts
center package, but a performing arts center plus two other projects — the
MCC piece and the transit center.

            We are not talking about the Cobbs
Hill Armory. That’s a project we are looking to coordinate with, but it’s not
being discussed at our table.

            Like I said, we’ve had one meeting.
We didn’t talk about sites. But I hope we will actually be tackling feasibility
questions that will provide usable information for both of those sites — Main
and Clinton, and Main and Gibbs.

            The report is not a recommendation
for “this or nothing.” I think there are mid-sized organizations that would
prefer to be at the Main and Gibbs site, but that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t
consider being at the Main and Clinton site.

            City:The Eastman School is just now embarking
on $5 million renovations to the Eastman Theatre that will make that venue an
ideal symphony hall. But the RPO the Eastman School have also been involved in
venue-requirement discussions with the earlier Ad Hoc Committee. Is there a
danger of duplicating efforts?

            Lentini:
Those were just very preliminary discussions to get a sense of groups’
needs for all phases of the arts center project, and the symphony hall —
along with the small, mid-sized, and large venues — was always one of the
components of the overall project.

            But, when it comes to usage, we’re
really not limited to local groups. What I’ve understood is that there are a
variety of performing arts groups and opportunities that exist outside of this
community that we could bring in if we had different space, bigger space. For
example, Garth Fagan has a desire to bring in dance groups from New York City
if there were an appropriate dance facility to invite them to.

            This is about more than a couple of
groups. This is also about our ability to attract all sorts of world-class
talent. And it seems to me that would be to our benefit.

This article appears in Jul 14-20, 2004.