Proposed performance facilities could change Fort Collins’ cultural landscape

More than 120 years ago, Fort Collins' opera house was one happening spot.

Its entryway was adorned with stone pillars and arches, and inside were frescoes and a drop curtain decorated with a scene of the San Juan Mountains. It served as a multi-purpose community center, entertainment hall and, notably, a performing arts and cultural venue: a stopping place for troupes, glee clubs, minstrels, women's suffrage and anti-alcohol lecturers, Greco-Roman wrestlers, Shakespearean performers, and even something called an “operatta extravanganza.”

Things have obviously changed since then. Aggie Theatre, Hodi's Half Note and others now get local, regional and national bands. The Lincoln Center has a jam-packed schedule of touring performers and local theater groups. The University Center for the Arts hosts student and community cultural productions. The Northside Aztlan Center and various university venues serve as lecture halls. Small theaters have opened up in numerous renovated spaces.

Though their numbers have increased as Fort Collins has grown, the facilities are not meeting the needs of the community, according to a recently released report for the Cultural Facilities Plan. In fact, the report suggests that arts, culture and science are all actually being stifled because of the lack of facilities.

But the local arts landscape will once again be changing—moving the community into the 21st century and altering Fort Collins' arts and culture topography. Over the next few weeks Fort Collins Now will be looking into the possible future changes of performing and cultural facilities in Fort Collins: the current plans; the wish lists; the wants, needs, challenges and prospects for arts organizations and the city's Cultural Services; and the impact of all the proposed, pending and projected plans. In this issue, FCN will peek into at a few of the large proposed projects: the Beet Street amphitheater, the Oxbow Music Center and renovations at the Lincoln Center.



Beet Street on Mason Street

Sitting in the second-story offices of Beet Street and the Downtown Development Authority above Old Town Square, Carol Bennis' jaw dropped.

While discussing the future Beet Street amphitheater, what could become Fort Collins' largest performance or cultural facility, Bennis couldn’t just sit with mouth agape as DDA Executive Director Chip Steiner tossed out a few brazen remarks with only a tiny hint of sarcasm.

“We'll have full audio and visual capabilities,” he said, “which means we'll be hosting NPR in six months.”

“No!” said Bennis, the Beet Street executive director who was obviously startled by his brashness. “Chip, don't say that.”

“Well, what I mean is that we intend to have the capabilities to do something like that,” he said calmly, smiling at Bennis.

It's obvious that both are incredibly excited for the in-the-works Beet Street amphitheater project, which is still awaiting city site approval. Steiner's imagination runs amok with potential performers and events. Bennis reels him in, not wanting to jump too far too fast. When Steiner mentions the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, Bennis nearly explodes.

“Yeah, that would be a headache to stage anyway,” he said.

But as they dig further into the development process, the project's potential grows. The Rolling Stones, another of Steiner's ideas, may not be too unrealistic.

The venue has been on the books since the arts and culture initiative was conceived. And now that the DDA-funded program has an executive director—Bennis was hired last year—and programming has begun—with one set of programs focused on poverty and the other on social media, which brought in PostSecret creator Frank Warren—work on the venue can move forward. Another boon for the DDA and Beet Street: Gov. Bill Ritter is expected to sign the DDA extension bill next week, which will allow them to continue collecting tax increment financing dollars.

Bennis says it wouldn't be unreasonable to see a groundbreaking by early 2009 and the amphitheater open by 2010.

Last week, Beet Street and consultants from HOK Venue, which has been hired to design the project, hosted a charrette for the project, bringing in various community members, stakeholders and those involved in local arts and entertainment to look over plans and make suggestions. Bennis and Steiner say it was a positive meeting, with HOK coming away with what they needed to further the project into design development.

“We got after some of the initial planning concepts and there was some really good outcomes,” said HOK's David Greusel. “But we are still trying to figure out what it is and what it looks like.”

The proposed plans show a 4,000-seat amphitheater on the corner of Mason Street and Mountain Avenue on city-owned land south of the Larimer County Justice Center. The project is expected to cost $20 million or more. According to Bennis, HOK is working on the site feasibility and partial design “to determine where the amphitheater could be constructed and which layout, features and design elements are optimal for the facility so we have a firm handle on the cost and a thorough understanding of specific engineering challenges.”

At that central location, Bennis said, pedestrians and even vehicles could peak into the bowl-like venue to watch rehearsals or performances. It will likely have a roof over the seats—1,500 of which will comprise the balcony—and the venue's walls will close in the winter. Outside, there will be a public plaza and walkway that connects Mountain Avenue to the Justice Center lawn. The choir balcony, which Steiner jokingly suggested will be saved for the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, may also be used to seat smaller audiences. Greusel says the venue will include a reasonable number of “spectator amenities,” meaning bathrooms and concessions.

He says the amphitheater is being designed to accentuate “intimacy and community.”

“Those are the two big things we got from the charrette: It's very intimate, and people will feel close to the stage no matter where they are sitting,” he said. “It will really feel like the audience is taking part in a community event and not a spectator event.”

While the amphitheater will be the Beet Street venue, used for its themed programs, it is expected to serve as a possible performance spot for local community, arts and cultural organizations.

“It's for Beet Street but it won't be exclusive to Beet Street. It's a community facility and it's gonna be cool,” Steiner said.

Bennis hopes to see the Fort Collins Symphony use the spot as a summer venue. She is also working with the university on other potential uses, including a Shakespeare festival.

While filling 4,000 seats for one performance is a lofty task, Bennis says Beet Street is prepared for the challenge of not only getting Northern Colorado residents to come out for an event, but to attract outsiders. They have done their “due diligence” in making sure the facility is the “right size,” she said. And the group has already been successful in getting non-locals to attend Beet Street events. At the recent Frank Warren lecture, she said, 59 percent of people were from out of the area; a show of hands at the event showed that some people traveled as long as four, five and six hours to sit in the gymnasium of the Northside Aztlan Center for an hour-long talk.

“We have a mission to attract much larger audiences to Fort Collins, to encourage participation in the community and way beyond,” Bennis said. “We know what it takes to get people to come. … That's what one of our goals is: attracting many more people.”

She doesn't foresee the venue being a competitor of the Lincoln Center, any future performing arts center or the Bohemian Foundation's planned Oxbow venue. She says the programming and offerings will be much different than what one will find in the other facilities.

“The goal is to grow that pie rather than competing for that same ticket-buyer in town,” she said.



A glimpse into Oxbow

For the past three years, Fort Collins' community leaders, culturati and residents have been talking about Pat Stryker and Bohemian Foundation's future music venue, despite having few clues about actual details.

After announcing plans in 2005 for a parcel of land on the Oxbow property between the Poudre River and New Belgium Brewing Co., Stryker and her Bohemian Foundation have been fairly hush-hush about the music venue.

That hasn't stopped hearsay from enveloping the project in a fog of gossip. All rumor aside, Bohemian Foundation Executive Director Merry Hummell answered questions about the Oxbow Music Center over email. While she said she could not provide too many specifics on the project, she did give a broader picture of what the facility means for the community.

Creating a “new venue concept,” the Bohemian Foundation has great expectations for the facility, which “we expect will become one of the best music facilities in the country,” Hummell wrote.

“The Bohemian Foundation's vision for the Oxbow Music Center is to create a landmark cultural asset, where the residents of Fort Collins and Northern Colorado feel inspired,” she continued. “We hope the venue will enhance appreciation for the great musical offerings we have here in Colorado and for talented local, regional and national musicians.”

The details are vague, but the creation that Hummell hints at could become a revolutionary music facility, bringing in musicians all year long, which she emphasized.

“Although the design is still in early planning, the Oxbow Music Center will be a YEAR ROUND venue with both indoor and outdoor features,” she wrote. “All the music will be generated from inside the venue and music may flow to outdoor seating in warmer months.”

As their work continues, the Bohemian Foundation will look to make more of their plans public.

“As part of our design process, we want to take into consideration the many important factors associated with the development of this site including working with the surrounding community and the City of Fort Collins,” Hummell wrote.

For years, Stryker's passion for music has meant great things for locals and visitors. She has given hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Downtown Business Association to make music echo through Old Town during one weekend in August. NewWestFest's Bohemian Nights now bringing in more than 50 bands including national acts and local favorites, has helped turn the local summer event into a virtual music festival. About 120,000 people now make their way to Old Town for the event.

Time will tell if Stryker and her “love of music” can do the same at Oxbow.

“Music is an international language and a great connector-it resonates with people in a very real and emotional way and we expect that the Oxbow Music Center will be a very special place,” Hummell said.



Lincoln Center: Phase 1

As the Lincoln Center hits its 30s, it has become clear that the facility needs a little makeover: some plucking, primping and maybe a perm.

“The Lincoln Center is celebrating its 30th anniversary, bringing some significant strength with it, but it reminds us it needs some polishing,” Lincoln Center public relations coordinator Susan Herlihy said. “The community has increased in size significantly over the past 30 years and we need, at a minimum, to do some updating to reflect that growth. We would like to do more but we are limited.”

The Lincoln Center's upcoming renovation will include $5 million in cosmetic surgery. And while that seems like a lot to the average person, it's quite limiting for the city-owned performing- and visual-arts facility.

Phase one of the Lincoln Center's renovation will be funded by the Building on Basics tax renewal of 2005. Cultural Services has identified numerous wants and needs, but they will do as much as they can with the money they have.

“We could spend it easily three different ways and a whole lot more,” Herlihy said. “We will deal with the heaviest needs in phase one.”

Jill Stilwell, Fort Collins director of cultural services, said they will look at adding restrooms, widening hallways, making improvements to the Mini Theater, adding storage and upgrading the building's finishes to the 21 century.

“It's a lot of things that aren't really sexy but they are important things that people will notice,” Stilwell said.

They hope to get everything on their list completed with the $4.85 million, but anything left over will be added to the phase two list: a bigger, more intense, more expensive overhaul. Phase two also includes larger changes at the Lincoln Center and the addition of a new 1,800-seat city-owned performing arts center.

Phase two is really nowhere near a reality. City Council held a work session on Tuesday night to review the proposed Cultural Plan. Part of the plan lists as priorities building the larger PAC in downtown just west of the proposed Beet Street site, and overhauling the Lincoln Center, shrinking the current main theater to 600-800 seats, creating a black box theater and adding rehearsal, shop and administration space. The two projects would need to be interconnected, Herlihy said.

While council seemed interested in the overall idea of the plan, there is still much work to be done before phase two becomes more than a performing arts center in the sky, so to speak.

“We have phase one and phase two, and the numbers are close together, but the reality of those projects being close to each other is not good,” Herlihy said. “Talking about the building the performing arts center along with decreasing the number of seats (in the Lincoln Center), it's a lot more than adding a few bathroom stalls.”

Stilwell can only speculate what type of funding mechanism(s) would help that become a reality, but says it would likely require private support as well as some sort of measure-approved tax.

While they concentrate on the renovations at hand, the two women are also focused on all the changes in store for Fort Collins' cultural offerings. Stilwell notes that she is excited about the future options and is pleased that the community might soon realize what an economic driver arts and culture can be.

Herlihy said the different groups working on the various facilities have shown a yearning to ensure the venues will not end up destabilizing each other.

“I think the challenge is that understandably each group is attempting further the priorities it has established,” she said. “As a result, there is a certain element of parallel paths but a strong desire and hope for ongoing collaboration.”