The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Projects for downtown venue vary
NEW HAVEN — The competing projects to fill a large venue in the city’s downtown entertainment district represent solid, existing businesses looking to expand, but the similarities end there.
The New Haven Parking Authority wants to lease the estimated 10,000- to 11,000square-foot former club space adjacent to the Crown Street garage to an organization that will draw the largest number of new patrons downtown with a positive spillover for the hospitality, retail and restaurant sectors.
A consortium that includes Long Wharf Theatre, the Shubert Theatre and Albertus Magnus College would split the space into a 200-seat theater on the main floor, with a 90-seat cabaretstyle venue on the lower level. The current cocktail area at the shuttered club would be used for classrooms and a rehearsal area tied to the main productions, as well as enhancement of Albertus’ theater program.
The other bidder is the nonprofit New Haven Center for the Performing Arts that runs the College Street Music Hall across the street.
Keith Mahler, president of Premier Facilities LLC, the manager for NHCPA, said its plan is a smaller version of the current 2,000-seat music and comedy center at 238
College St., which opened in 2015. He referred to the new venture as District Ballroom.
In addition to the different direction, the consortium is estimating a more expensive renovation and is looking for several financial waivers that Premier does not seek.
The authority, which only recently took ownership of the space following a long court battle with the last tenant, has a number of things it wants to accomplish.
The first is to enhance the city’s reputation as an arts and entertainment destination with more patrons making the trip here.
Joseph Rini, the authority’s attorney pointed out, after the bids were opened on Aug. 23, that its main job is to provide parking for the businesses downtown and to generate enough income to support its large operation.
The use of this property is a revenue generator for the parking authority, in addition to a great opportunity to fill the last major arts space in the district.
The authority, after ranking the intrinsic value of the plans, will look at such things as requests for special tax treatment or rent reductions as a negative factor, when it weighs the pros and cons.
Rini made that general reference on Aug. 23 before the authority had looked at either of the submissions.
The proposed terms and new uses for the site, which wraps the corner at 223 College St. and 215 and 239 Crown St., are very different.
Each of them voluntarily released the details of their proposals after submitting them to the Parking Authority in August. There were only two bidders even though some 50 people visited the site in an open house hosted by the authority.
“We can’t go below a certain minimum,” Rini remarked when the bid submissions were announced.
One of those minimums is $6 per square foot. The other consideration is how much parking revenue is going to be generated by the proposed uses and how many people will be attracted to the new offerings.
Despite the emphasis on certain financial terms set by the authority, the consortium’s plan requested that the $60,000 signing fee be waved as well as the requested PILOT (payment in lieu of taxes.)
The PILOT would be based on the assessed value of the property as of June 1 of each year and calculated at the tax rate set by the alders.
The consortium also requested that the rent be waived for the first five years of the lease, given the financial investment it will have to make. Rent payment would then be $6 per square foot in years 6 through 10 of the lease, according to its plan.
Premiere Facilities is not looking to waive five years of rent payments, nor is it taking issue with the $60,000 signing fee.
Both bidders said they would have to gut the current structure. The consortium estimated it would have to invest $5.7 million to renovate and bring the 10,000-squarefoot space up to code. District Ballroom estimated its construction costs at $2 million, almost two-thirds less
The theaters and Albertus said their project would bring 51,000 new patrons to downtown with attendance up to 56,464 by the third year. Premiere estimated it would serve 2,500 ticket-holders weekly for more than 100,000 visits over a year.
The theaters and Albertus estimated that their project would bring $1.4 million more to the businesses downtown.
Premiere said another music hall, that would attract smaller acts, such as those that now go to Infinity Hall in Hartford and Norwalk, the Ridgefield Playhouse and Fairfield Theater Company’s Stage One and Warehouse, would come to New Haven under its plans and add $3.1 million to the downtown economy.
Premiere said it had 232,451 patrons paying admission through June 30 of this year from May 2015 at a total of 260 events.
The consortium expects to offer 518 performances, given its multiple proposed spaces, over 288 calendar days. It calculates this based on attendance at its 200-seat venue where Long Wharf would relocate its Stage II productions and increase them from two a year to five. The other entertainment component at the site is the cabaret, based on a pub in New York City.
The main Long Wharf stage on Sargent Drive has attendance of more than 60,000 patrons and draws from Westport to Middletown to Old Saybrook with 85 percent coming from outside New Haven.
If this project is chosen for the College Street space, it would be the theater’s first presence downtown. Years ago, relocating the theater had been suggested for the former coliseum space, but it fell through over parking.
The NHCPA wants to negotiate the length of the lease beyond 10 years, which it feels is too short. Steven Mednick, Mahler’s attorney, said a 15-year-lease with two fiveyear additional options would be better.
The consortium has proposed a 10-year lease with three five-year additional options.
On the PILOT, Premiere asked that the land be “fairly assessed, on a mutually agreeable methodology arrived at during our negotiation of the lease.”
The consortium estimated its operating budget at some $500,000 a year with 90 percent of that raised from renters and ticketholders.
The remaining 10 percent would be raised annually by its members. It estimated that 50 percent of expenses would be for personnel, 19 percent for occupancy costs; 12 percent for administrative expenses and 19 percent for contingencies.
For the construction budget, it plans to raise an additional $300,000 in reserve funds for a total fundraising goal of $6 million. It would raise it through donors, while financing the balance. It listed a number of banking contacts.
District Ballroom said it is self-funding construction with no financing contingency. It said it would offer more details if chosen by the authority.
As for the time frame, District Ballroom said it would start within 5 days of receiving a permit and anticipates a six-month construction period.
The consortium submitted a longer time frame, starting with negotiating a lease within three months. It would then have a neighborhood meeting and begin a design phase that would likely take four months with another neighborhood meeting at the end of
this phase.
A competitive bid process and construction estimated at an additional four to six months would follow.
The lease terms presented by the authority would allow the parties jointly to end the lease in the 11th through the 15th year with one year’s notice and a negotiated payment. In years 16 through 25, the parties jointly can end the lease with two years notice and no compensation.
One of the reasons the authority had such a problem with its last tenant was a lease that lasted 90 years.
As far as development experience, District Ballroom built out the College Street Music Hall at a cost of $5.6 million and recently developed the Space Ballroom in Hamden, a 295-seat capacity venue.
Both the 103-year-old Shubert and Long Wharf, founded in 1965, have extensive facility management experience while Long Wharf also recently renovated its main location at a cost of $4 million.
To show outside support, the International Festival of Arts and Ideas, which makes extensive use of both theaters during its run in June, endorsed their plan for the College Street site, as did Gateway Community College. The arts festival’s managing director is Liz Fisher, wife of the executive director of the Shubert, John Fisher.
A letter supporting the New Haven Center for the Performing Arts’ use of the large venue, dated May 30, just after the RFP was issued, was signed by 13 downtown merchants.
Premiere cites its ranking in Pollstar, a concert trade publication, as 41th in the world in its size category, as evidence of its drawing power. It said this makes New Haven one of the few cities with a population of less than 150,000 that is rated internationally.
Mednick said he feels comfortable that its plans will work because it mimics its original venue on College Street, while its competitor is offering an untested model. “We are prepared to do exactly what we do, just at a different scale
Joshua Borenstein, the managing director of Long Wharf, said the proposal “seems to be a really good complement to everything else that is downtown and it is a really good opportunity for our organizations to expand what we offer the city.”
“The partnership opportunity is really wonderful between our three institutions. ... I also think the educational opportunities with Gateway, with the Cooperative Arts Magnet High School and Albertus will be fruitful,” John Fisher said.