Santa Fe commits $500,000 to local theater redevelopment project
Revamp of Greer Garson Theatre, which sits on midtown campus, part of overall redevelopment plan for the area
Vaughn Irving says Santa Fe has suffered from a lack of performance venues for quite a while, with some two dozen theater companies in the area able to rent only a handful of sites for their shows.
So when the city of Santa Fe announced last week it plans to commit $500,000 to redeveloping the Greer Garson Theatre Center, which hasn’t been operational for shows for a few years now, Irving said he sees a plethora of opportunities for community use.
“The theater industry itself is pretty small scale in Santa Fe but we have probably 26 small theater companies and only three — I think — rentable venues,” said Irving, the executive director of LiveArts Santa Fe, the nonprofit partnering with the city on the redevelopment of the center. “The same can be said for dance companies and music, where there is always a deficit of venues for these amazing institutions that already exist and are already doing great work in our city to perform.”
News of the city’s financial commitment to revitalizing the center — spurred by “unanticipated” lodgers tax revenue — is just one portion of an overall plan to develop the area, said Midtown Metropolitan Redevelopment Agency Director Karen Iverson.
The center sits on roughly 56 acres of city-owned land formerly occupied by the College of Santa Fe and later the Santa Fe University of Art and Design. The state, Iverson said, owns 8 acres on the campus, but the plans are to redevelop the area into a vibrant, mixed-use community district.
LiveArts Santa Fe plans to raise $1 million in partnership to show officials with the city “that we have the passion [and] that we have the people in Santa
Fe who want this to happen, and the capacity to execute,” said Irving.
That funding can come from private foundation grants. But it can also include state and federal dollars, Iverson said.
“The National Endowment of the Arts has some potential funding … [and] perhaps we look at historical tax credits as well,” Iverson said.
Iverson said an analysis for the center shows bringing it back to operational use — including areas like Americans With Disabilities Act and fire code compliance — would cost $2.2 million. More money is needed, she said, to add upgraded lighting and sound equipment, as well as new seating.
The process for bringing the center back to operational use will come in phases, Irving said. The first phase would include making the Black
Box Theater operational. After that, LiveArts Santa Fe and the city could look at making upgrades to other areas of the center, including a 500seat mainstage theater, classrooms, rehearsal spaces, a costume studio and dance space.
“It is all subject to change, but that is our plan right now,” he said.
Iverson noted the redevelopment of the center is in the early stages, with an operational study and a design plan likely to be finished by the end of next year.
Irving said he hopes the center can set up a sliding-scale rent system to make the space affordable.
“Sometimes when there are spaces available, they’re cost prohibitive. You can’t actually get in there and do anything,” Irving said. “So we’re really trying to make sure that it’s affordable, that it’s accessible, that it’s not just serving the folks who can pay a big pile of money, but it’s serving all of the people of Santa Fe. That’s really our priority.”