Reaction to arts center is mixed
GREENSBORO — The latest effort to secure funding for a performing arts center for the Gate City has left downtown leaders surprised, confused, concerned, seeking answers and looking for direction.
“It came from out of nowhere,” Milton Kern, a downtown developer, said of the effort to put an arts center bond referendum on the November ballot. “I was not expecting it this soon.”
What’s more, the information presented so far has left some searching for more specifics.
“Clarity is needed about all of this,” Ed Wolverton, president and CEO of Downtown Greensboro Inc., said of the proposal. “This is very confusing.”
But beyond those frustrations, the possibility of building a performing arts center downtown has left center-city leaders exhilarated.
Here’s a chance, they say, to pull off a project that the city has debated for more than a decade.
“A performing arts center is a catalytic event for downtown,” said Walker Sanders, president of the Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro. “It’s a watershed opportunity for this community.”
City officials said they appreciate what’s at stake, but they also ask for a measure of public patience.
“This project didn’t exist two weeks ago,” Mayor Robbie Perkins said. “This is an evolving process. We have moved it forward more in the past two weeks than we have in the past 10 years.”
Since 2006, voters have twice turned down bond referendums to pay for replacing the aging War Memorial Auditorium at the Greensboro Coliseum Complex.
The issue came up again in mid-January, primarily because of need and because on Dec. 1, the city retired all $56.4 million in debt for coliseum complex improvements, some dating to 1991.
That month, the coliseum’s managing director Matt Brown asked city officials to consider a $36 million performing arts center to replace Memorial Auditorium. The project would be financed using $11 million in hotel/ motel taxes and $25 million in bonds.
Asked for additional details about his plan, Brown said, “It’s way too early to get that specific. We haven’t even designed it.”
At a retreat Tuesday, the City Council said it supports the need to replace Memorial Auditorium, but it wants the new performing arts center downtown, and council members want Brown to run it. But the council wasn’t yet prepared to put a referendum on the fall ballot.
The council said it wants a downtown project evaluated against the cost of one at the coliseum.
City officials estimate the cost of a coliseum performing arts center at $32 million to $43 million. The estimate for one downtown ran from $49 million to $72 million.
“I definitely challenge that conclusion,” Wolverton said. “They made an assumption that to go downtown you would have to have a 6-acre site and that you would have to buy it. They totally ignored city land that might be available.
“They made an assumption that 1,500 parking spaces would be needed, totally ignoring that there might be a site near parking where this expense is not needed.”
Interim City Manager Denise Roth said, “They were very, very rough estimates. ... The council asked for a ballpark or sense of cost, and that was what we were trying to fulfill.”
The council said downtown advocates would have to make up the difference between a downtown site and a coliseum site by raising private dollars.
Since the retreat, city officials said, a plan for getting support for a performing arts center downtown has begun to emerge.
Roth said that plan will have several parts, including an economic impact and feasibility study, an effort to raise private money, a financing plan and a series of community meetings.
“I want to make clear that this process and decision making will not happen in a vacuum,” Roth said. “The process that we are going to go through over the next few months will allow for a more thorough review.”
By the end of April or early May, Roth said, the city will have to determine if the plan will work downtown. That’s because of a June 30 deadline for submitting the referendum request to the Local Government Commission in Raleigh and the U.S. Department of Justice for approval.
Downtown leaders wonder if that allows sufficient time to do all that needs to be done to insure the referendum passes.
“It’s going to be very difficult,” Wolverton said.
Still others wonder about the timing of another bond referendum.
While the economy is improving, unemployment in Greensboro remains high at 9.3 percent, and the Guilford County Board of Commissioners is likely to raise taxes in fiscal year 2012-13.
“Timing is a big piece of it,” said Keith Holliday, CEO of the 1,100-seat Carolina Theatre downtown. “You don’t want a third strike. You don’t want a third failed bond referendum.”
Holliday said he has delayed a capital campaign to add seats at his theater because of the economy.
“It’s a big red flag,” he said.
But Perkins offered a more optimistic outlook. “I am not looking at this as something we are going to fail on,” the mayor said. “We are going to make it work.”
Asked if Brown’s coliseum concept might be an alternative, Perkins said, “I think it is going to be downtown. ... This city doesn’t need a backup plan.”
Contact Donald W. Patterson at 373-7027 or don.patterson@news-record.com
Accompanying Photos
Photo Caption: A previous performance The Magic Flute by the Greensboro Opera
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