At a press conference this afternoon, city officials in effect rebooted plans for a theater and apartment building on Parcel 5, a prime part of the former Midtown Plaza site downtown.
The basics of the plan remain the same: A 3000-seat theater, fronting on Main Street, with a 150-unit apartment building at the rear. The Rochester Broadway Theatre League will own and operate the theater, and Morgan Management will build the apartment tower.
What’s new: The theater part of the complex is now named the Golisano Arts and Entertainment Center at Midtown Commons. “It is now more than just a theater,” Mayor Lovely Warren said. “It is an entertainment complex that will anchor our downtown with hundreds of thousands of visitors annually.”
The plan includes additional “entertainment venues”: possibly an I-Max type movie theater, as well as new outdoor performance space, including a “green roof” providing space for events. The open space between Parcel 5 and Elm Street will be preserved and enhanced as public space.
Also new: former Chamber of Commerce President Sandy Parker will head a team charged with fundraising and other pre-construction efforts. Previously, RBTL President Arnie Rothschild headed those efforts.
The issue of funding remains. The estimated cost of the arts and entertainment center is $85 million. Paychex founder Tom Golisano pledged $25 million for the theater a year ago, but RBTL has not announced additional commitments since then. The city is seeking $20 million from Empire State Development, but officials say that overall, funding will come “mostly through private contributions.”
A downtown performing arts center has been a priority for Warren, who stresses its ability to not only create jobs but also bring an estimated 300,000 to 500,000 people downtown each year.
Plans for a movie theater were added to address concerns that the highly visible building would be dark part of the year when RBTL has no big touring shows scheduled. In addition, Warren is asking City Council to commission a national firm to evaluate concerns about the RBTL theater competing with local arts venues. Warren is also asking Council for support for the overall project.
Asked by a reporter whether the project will become a reality given the many proposals in the past that didn’t come to fruition, Warren pushed back. This proposal is different, she said, because it is backed with a serious financial commitment from Tom Golisano.
But more important, she said, is that Rochesterians have to decide whether it will continue to look backward at what Rochester once was or it can embrace what the city is becoming. Warren described the choice as between stagnation and vibrancy. If Rochester is going to compete with other cities around the country for businesses and growth, she said, stagnation isn’t the right choice.
Parker admitted that 20 years ago, she, too, was skeptical of building a performing arts center downtown. Thousands of people are now living downtown, she said, and the city is changing.
This article appears in Feb 28 – Mar 6, 2018.
Where are the concerns re: Morgan’s legal issues in Buffalo? Or the concerns of how a movie theater would affect The Little, which already serves downtown? Or the concerns that this entire project in the heart of our city is geared towards the suburban middle class and does nothing for city residents? These concerns have been largely ignored by this administration and based on this press conference, will continue to be ignored.
This is a ridiculous plan that will negatively affect the more than 700 events at the Eastman School of Music’s three performance venues (including school performances, visiting artists, Jazz Fest, and RPO), as well as the Little. Quite literally a waste of space.
What “leaders” want, “leaders” get…like the fast ferry.
Once again, our mayor wants some big project to proceed forward without knowing how to pay for it.
This project is nonpublic. Many city dwellers will see their services cut back in order to subsidize this unneeded luxury that most of the taxpayers would never use even if they could afford it.
As a theater artist in Rochester, I don’t see ANY benefits with regards to Parcel 5 at all. Outside of the obvious – where will the local leaders get the money if they are planning to do private fundraising, how will the space be occupied during the working hours especially if they want to bring a movie theater, the fact it will bring competition even to the artistic places already in town like Geva, the Little and the Eastman School – there is another reason this theater proposal doesn’t sit well.
Local artists are competing with the bigger venues just to be heard, and seeing this proposal is just another hurdle for them.
There are dozens of local theater companies and groups who are struggling to find venues to present their work – simply because there aren’t many venues or places to be found. There have been some successful venues in the last few years that have stepped up – mostly the MuCCC and the revamped Lyric Theatre, along with the RLTC taking up space in the old Greenovation building and plans for a new arts center on Joseph Avenue to be completed next year if all goes well. But that is not enough – we need more venues for local artists to hone their craft, to present it. Right now many groups (if not all) are using a DIY mentality to produce and promote their work without the support of others to get even the smallest sliver of success. They can’t even get that without a place to present their work.
If Rochester really wants to be a city of the arts and for the arts, they need to be supporting what is already here, and to support those who are creating great work that needs to be seen and heard. Whether it’s the RPO or dance companies like Garth Fagan, theaters like Blackfriars and Geva, and theater companies making waves (like Out of Pocket, Screen Plays, DVC, WallByrd and the Bronze Collective), why don’t you give them some incentive to keep bringing great work to be heard? How about creating proposals to create needed spaces for other companies? If Joseph Avenue will soon have a space, there must be other unoccupied buildings around the city that could be reconfigured into theater spaces. Even the MuCCC used to be a church before it was reconfigured, and is now one of the city’s true theater gems. And they do it all without a lot of government support.
Yet the city and the current administration seems to have no interest in helping local artists – they just want to do the Auditorium strategy of importing big hit shows that come for a week at most, bring in people who usually would have NO reason to come to Rochester, and they would only stay for the show and that’s it. How can you sustain such a business model, and to do so at the expense of local artists?
Parcel 5 makes no sense, and if the city wants to make it happen, they will do so at the expense of local artists who will see Rochester as a place where their work will be stifled – and it would not only be terrible, it would be sad as well. We need this city’s local artists to flourish, and Parcel 5 will only damage their hopes of doing so.
Not putting it here means it will go somewhere else. The sad truth is simply that larger productions want a larger venue and in an era of cars, that means it could go anywhere. Ask yourself why so many concerts end up at the CMAC. They’re loving the visitors.
I’m generally against this type of development, but the primary and secondary benefits of having this downtown are too good to ignore.