5. HRSR 08-03-3020ITEM # 5.
~•~~
.~--
ver
MEMORANDUM
TO: Housing & Redevelopment Authority
FROM: Catherine Mehelich, Director of Economic Development
DATE: August 2, 2010
SUBJECT: Update on HRA Buildings at 716 & 720 Main Street
With the recent storms, the HRA buildings have experienced some roof leaks. Staff will
provide a verbal update at the meeting regarding the condition and repairs of the buildings.
Staff understands that the Arts Alliance is actively exploring options to either expand in its
current location of the HRA buildings, or to relocate to another building. Staff anticipates
an update from Arts Alliance for the September or October HRA meeting. Attached is a
copy of a recent Star Tribune article regarding local arts centers.
N:\Departments\Community Development\Economic Development\Houlton Buildings\8.2.10 HRA.buildings.doc
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Suburban arts centers ... Are they
worth it?
Burnsville Arts Center
Burnsville and other suburbs try to
figure out how to make their pricey, p
ublicly funded arts centers pay off.
By JON BREAM, Star Tribune
Last update: April 21, 2010 - $:37 AM
Lorna Powell couldn't erase the smile on her
face. It wasn't just comedian Sinbad's
performance that made her beam; it was also
the new Burnsville Performing Arts Center,
where he'd performed.
"This is wonderful," said the longtime
Burnsville resident as she showed off the
town's new $20 million jewel to a friend. from.
St. Paul. "What a great asset to the
community. I'm proud. to be in Burnsville."
Ask anyone who has been to the sparkling
new facility and its 1,000-seat main theater,
and they will. gush like a Twins fans at Target
Field. But the bad. news has been inescapable:
In its first year, the 16-month-old arts center
lost $533,599 -- about 20 percent more than
projected.
In the past two decades, arts centers have
been cropping up all over suburbia, from
Hopkins to Hudson, Wis. With its cultural Taj
Mahal, Burnsville is confronting a challenge
other Twin Cities communities have faced:
how to make a pricey, publicly funded arts
center work. That doesn't necessarily
happen. in a year or two, or even three.
But, ultimately, is it worth it to have a multi-
use arts center in your suburb?
'"Most definitely," said Gene Winstead, mayor
of Bloomington, where a $7.2 million arts
center was built in 2003.
"What should a city do?" said Winstead.
"Provide public safety and public roads and a
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parks system. I view the center for the arts
as a form of park and. rec."
As a Bloomington City Council member, Mike
Possum voted against the center at first
because he didn't like the proposed site,
Now, he's a big fan. of the building, which is in
the same complex as the City Council
chambers.
"I've never heard a negative comment since it
was built," said Possum, who is secretary of
Bloomington's Housing and Redevelopment
Authority. "People complained about the
assessment of taxes for the arts center. But
all the critics have been silenced. It is used by
so many people in Bloomington. It's active
and vibrant 16, 18 hours a day."
In the past year, Burnsville might have had
only a few days that were quite so bustling.
But the critics and red ink don't rattle Steve
Peters, founder and president of Iowa-based
VenuWorks, which runs the Burnsville PAC,
along with more than a dozen. other theaters
and arenas in the Midwest. He compares this
ambitious south-metro venture to buying
your first expensive new car.
"The first several months, with. every little
thing, you have buyer's remorse," said Peters,
who was marketing director at Target Center
and recently became a partner in
Chanhassen Dinner Theaters (which. may
stage shows at Burnsville). "You hear that
little rattle and you're in the dealer's service
department." But soon you get accustomed
to the ride.
Whi e the Burnsville PAC may be as much of a
Lexus as the new Twins stadium, suburban.
arts centers are not everybody's field of
dreams.
"I've always disagreed with the philosophy of
'lf you build it, they will come,"' said John
Potter, executive director of the Phipps
Center for the Arts in Hudson, Wis. Rather,
the institution needs to develop multiple
audiences. He figures it took his 27-year-old,
privately funded center -- with its 247-seat
theater, seven art galleries and countless
classes for kids and adults -- a good 10
years to hit its stride.
Hopkins Center for the Arts, which. opened a
new building on blighted Mainstreet in 1997,
needed eight years, said Susan Hanna-Bibus,
executive arts director there. "You need to be
patient. You need to think long-term, and
you have to be willing to try things. Like we
did a cabaret show for spoken word and hip-
hop, but we couldn't make it work financially.
That 20-something audience is hard to
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reach."
Ingredients for success
The mantra for arts centers should be "If you
program it appealingly, they will come."
The programming in Hopkins, with a 71.6-
seat theater, is markedly different from. that
at the Phipps, but there are some common
ingredients that appear to lead to success at
suburban. arts centers:
• Anchor tenants. A suburban arts center
needs stable magnets to build and maintain
audiences. In Hopkins, it's the kids-oriented
Stages Theatre, with 260 performances per
year. Other centers use amulti-concert
series with subscription tickets. At
Bloomington, seven. resident community
organizations present about 80 percent of
the arts events.
• The right number of seats. With 1,000
seats in its theater, Burnsville can't compete
for big-name attraction with the 2,1.00-seat
room at Mystic Lake Casino in nearby Prior
Lake. On the other hand, Twin Cities dance
and theater companies may view the hall as
too big.
But with creative and resourceful
management, a suburban center can deliver
downtown quality. For example, at the Center
for Arts in Natick, Mass., 17 miles outside of
Boston, executive director David Lavalley may
have only 270 seats, but he's been. able to
manage his budget and present Judy Collins,
Paula Poundstone and George Winston, for
$50 or less per ticket.
• Diverse programming. "As frustrating as it
is to market, we are very eclectic," said Potter
of Hudson's Phipps, which features
everything from "The Adventures of Peter
Rabbit" to a series of Celtic, classical and.
bluegrass music concerts to classes for kids
about ecology and art.
• Don't be just a rental facility. At the
Phipps, Potter rents the space to other
organizations as well as producing his own
programs. Doing both, he says, is "a secret of
our success." Of course, there's more risk
when you're the entrepreneurial producer --
but also potential for more reward, said arts
consultant Chris Shrum, who has worked on
projects from Miami to Maine, where he's
based.
• Multi-use. It may be called an "arts center"
but it also serves as a community center,
hosting wedding receptions, Rotary meetings,
school functions, yoga classes and little
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Danielle's dance recital.
• Public/private partnership. "It works best
when the municipality is an active player in
the development," said Steve Barberio, a Twin.
Cities theater producer who was a force
behind the building of the Hopkins arts
center when he was artistic director of Stages
Theatre.
At publicly funded centers, the relationship
with the city needs to be maintained to avoid
political fallout, which is what Burnsville's
fledgling venue has been experiencing. With a
more established place like Hopkins, city
officials "pay attention but they don't
micromanage," said Hanna-Bibus, who
reports to the city at least twice a year.
• Marketing. Pree parking and safer streets
are known amenities. But the challenge is
alerting people outside of the immediate
suburb about presentations and
performances-- and that tickets usually cost
less than. they do downtown or at a casino.
If the attraction. -- and price -- is right,
people will travel to a suburban arts center.
Only 10 percent of the audiences at the
Hopkins center come from. that suburb. To
see Sinbad in Burnsville, Greg Devine and
Laura Thomas drove 45 minutes from
Ramsey and came away impressed. She said:
"This is like going to Chanhassen Dinner
Theatre." He said: "I like this better than. the
Guthrie."
• Alcohol. No, you don't need afull-time bar,
but liquor is an amenity that enhances event-
goers' experience. And it helps with the
revenue.
Questions about arts sprawl
Burnsville, Bloomington, Hopkins, Lakeville,
Minnetonka and Hudson, among others, have
arts centers. Maplewood and Chaska are two
'burbs that have community centers with
high-quality theaters that accommodate
nearly 300 patrons.
Why does the Twin. Cities have so many of
these suburban facilities?
"As the population has shifted from the core
cities to the suburbs, arts consumption has
shifted, or grown, accordingly," said Jeff
Prauer, executive director of the Metropolitan
Regional Arts Council. "There's a great
appetite for things to happen in the suburbs."
Theater impresario Barberio sees it as a
combination of "arts sprawl" and civic pride.
"There is a strong sense of civic pride here
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associated with. coimnunity gathering spaces
-- whether for athletes or the arts."
is there a stigma that if it's in the 'burbs, it
can't be quality art?
"There was a stigma that it's'community' and
not professional," said Hanna-Bibus of
Hopkins, where national names like Leon
Redbone are mixed in with local artists. "But
that's been changing for the western suburbs
audience."
Can a Twin Cities artist/company present the
same show both in the city and. in the
suburbs?
"I sure hope so," said George Sutton,
executive director of the James Sewell Ballet,
which. made its Burnsville debut last weekend
and performed this weekend at St. Catherine
University in St. Paul, its usual home. "We
shouldn't leave any venue off our dance card,
if you will, if the venue can attract an
audience for what we do. We had a terrific
experience in Burnsville, in collaboration with
the Envision Academy [a dance school at the
center], and a heartening response from the
audience."
One cosmopolitan St. Paulite, Dawn White,
had no hesitation about traveling to
Burnsville in December to see Sinbad with
her friend Lorita Powell., a 20-year Burnsville
resident.
"I love this place. We don't have stuff like this
where 1 live," White said. "And this was easy
to get to."
With her civic pride showing, Powell
predicted: "We're going to give the rest of the
theaters a run for their money."
Jon Bream • 612-673-171.9
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Other suburban arts centers
Last update: April 21, 2010 - 8:38 AM
Art Center on 7 (Minnetonka): two theaters
for drama and concerts, adjacent to
Minnetonka Haigh School.
Chaska Community Center: theater, gallery,
classrooms, pool, gym, day-care.
Edina Arts Center: gallery, classrooms.
Lakeville Area Arts Center: theater f'or
concerts and drama, gallery, classrooms.
Lyric Arts (Anoka): theater for drama and
concerts, classes.
Maplewood Community Center: theater for
concerts and drama, gym, pool, classrooms.
Minnetonka Center for the Arts: art
galleries, classrooms
Northfield Arts Guild: one building for
theater, one for dance, recitals, gallery,
classrooms.
Fhipps Center for the Arts (Hudson, Wis.):
theater f'or drama and concerts, galleries,
classrooms.
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Suburban arts biggies
The Bloomington Civic Plaza
A look at three prominent arts
centers
~ Marlin t_evisan, Star Tribune
~ t3urnsville
P~rforxxxin+~ Arts Center
k ~~ stunning new, $20 million `I'aj iVlahal with a
1;000-seat theater but not enough. sho4vs.
~ Bloomington
('enter for the Arts
~1n. arty $7.2 million building a~>ith diverse
programs, lots of community arts groups,
plus City Council chambers.
lwI()FK:I~S
Centex- for the Arts
12evitalized 1Vlainstreet with a X4.3 million
children's theater, lots of classes anal
national concerts.
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Suburban arts centers by fihe
numbers
.Comparing three arts centers
t:. Hopkins
t :enter for tl~e Arts
~~ 1.9{)7: year opened
203,100: visitors
4t'i3: arts e~-ents (Stages Theatre, author
lectures, dance recitals, concerts by Rita
Coolidge, Neal & Leandro}
232: non-arts events (reunions, Rotary,
seminars, etc.}
Features: 716-seat theater, 186-seat black-
l?ox theater, dance studio, classrooms
2 ~ -full-time equivalent staff
Revie~~: Spacious, good. sightlines, as
intimate as the Guthrie, sound system could
be upgraded. Pre-concert social hour on
'I'uesdati=-night series is a delightful bonus.
2003: year opened
C:;enter far the Arts
105,000; visitors
1K8: arts events (Bloomington (:'ivic Theatre,
Continental Ballet Company, concerts by
Tonic Sol-Fa, Rcibert Robinson and ~~'loroe
Crossing, 14 rotating gallery exhibits},
countless non-arts events (meetings, fan~~ers
market, receptions, seminars; e~rorkshops}
Features: 366-seat theater, 120-seat back-
box theater, dance studios, art gallery,
classrooms, farmers market, City Council
chambers, cableWTV studio, TATS in lcibby
4: full-time equivalent staff
Revie`~-: Easy-to-.find destinations in a big
buildi~ig, terrific intimacy but still plenty of
seats, good sightlin.es, hne fit for theater,
music and dance.
3. Burnsville
Performing Arts Center
2001): year opened
2.:Bloomingtan 51..452: visitors
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3~3: arts events (Dakota Valley Sympl~any,
Ltrvision Academy of the Arts; cancerts by
Lone Line, Phil Vassar and Bill Engvall)
841.: nan-arts events {weddings, trade
i shows, meetings, etc.)
:Features: l,(}Ot)-seat theater, 150-seat
black-box theater, dance studio, rehearsal
hall., at~t gallery
~ 8: full-time equivalent staff'
~ Itevie~v: Stylish, excellent amenities, goad.
~ si_ghtlines in a steep room that feels like an
t upscale lecture hall..
E JON BREAM
*STATISTIC;S :FROM 20{}c}
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