(Rochester, N.Y.) – As developers detailed a $70 million theater that would be built on the Midtown Plaza site, city officials sounded a note of caution that they don’t know how to pay for it - or if the plan has any public support.
Christa Construction, Morgan Management, and LaBella Associates – firms that are already working on projects at Midtown – made a presentation before the Rochester Broadway Theatre League’s site selection committee on Friday.
RBTL is seeking a new home, claiming the Auditorium Centre is too outdated and too costly to renovate.
“If you have one of something, it should be downtown,” said LaBella’s president, Robert Healy. “A new performing arts center for RBTL on this site will fit. It will provide renewed energy and excitement for the downtown area.”
The team showed images of what the theater would look like. They based the model on a performing arts center recently constructed in Durham, North Carolina. The theater would front Main Street. There would be green space in back that would allow for outdoor performances.
The city plans to have the Midtown site cleared this year, and theater construction would take two years.
Heidi Zimmer-Meyer of the Rochester Downtown Development Corporation said the theater could supplement business at the Riverside Convention Center and complement Monroe Community College’s plans for a performing arts program downtown.
“The ability to a create a new jewel in the crown of the region's largest performing arts district would be huge, and would go a long way toward making people feel wonderful about this community,” Zimmer-Meyer said.
The developers are waiting for a feasibility study to show demand for a theater and what kind of subsidy it might require.
David Christa said his firm may kick in some money, but said he’s waiting for the feasibility study.
“I think it really has to be a sound business endeavor, before philanthropy gets involved, and the delegation finds money at the state level,” Christa said.
“The issue remains on how to pay for it,” said City Corporation Counsel Tom Richards. “If the community does not support it, then the kind of investment of public financing that would have to go into this should not happen.”
“There's a moment in time when communities change, and maybe this is a project that will bring everybody together to pull something together of this magnitude.,” said RBTL Chairman Arnold Rothschild. “It's a very exciting concept. It would dramatically change downtown.”
RBTL is also considering Clinton Crossings in Brighton and LakeRidge Centre (the former Medley Centre) in Irondequoit. Funding plans for those proposals have not been made public.
Although the city has repeatedly said the county’s support for a Midtown theater is essential, County Executive Maggie Brooks said she is staying out of the process. She also questioned how this theater proposal is different from the one she supported across the street at Renaissance Square.
