New Performing Arts Center gaining ground

DDA, Mt. Crested Butte Council sign off on development agreement

The proposed Mt. Crested Butte Performing Arts Center is one step closer to breaking ground, or at least putting pen to paper. Both the Mt. Crested Butte Downtown Development Authority and Mt. Crested Butte Town Council signed off on a revised version of the Performing Arts Center Development Agreement during their respective meetings on Monday, December 14 and Tuesday, December 15.

The agreement is established between the Crested Butte Music Festival and the town of Mt. Crested Butte. It sets forth the terms and conditions for the development, ownership, governance, construction and operation of the project. A series of conceptual design meetings then took place December 16-18 in the council chambers, and several community organizations, as well as the council, were invited to provide suggestions on the Center’s design. The goal of the meetings was to incorporate the needs and wants of potential users like the Center for the Arts, the Mountain Theatre, Crested Butte School of Dance and the Crested Butte Community School into the design considerations.
“It was very exciting; we got some great input,” said CBMF Artistic and Managing Director Alexander Scheirle of the meetings. “We want to make it a community center—not just a music center—and they appreciated the opportunity to give input.”
According to Mt. Crested Butte Mayor William Buck, “The development agreement is a road map for what needs to occur in the coming months” to lay the groundwork for the PAC.
Once the agreement is signed, they can submit a 501(c)(3) application to form a non-profit corporation, develop the conceptual design, capital campaign (fundraising), and alter the PUD (Planned Unit Development) to accommodate the structure on the proposed site just north of Treasury Road.
The Performing Arts Center would serve as a venue for everything from live music to conventions to dance recitals. Part of the attraction of the new facility is having a larger space (roughly 27,000 square feet) to accommodate higher profile acts and to provide practice space and higher quality acoustics.
“I hope it will have 500 seats,” said Scheirle. “It’s a tipping point for getting the bigger bands. If you go lower, than you have to raise ticket prices and it’s not affordable for many people, because it gets very expensive.
“A bigger hall has more volume, and that’s what you need with a larger orchestra—otherwise it doesn’t sound good,” Scheirle added.
Despite the challenging economic environment, the coalition appeared confident in its pursuit of the $10 million to $12 million project, which is slated to include up to $6 million in bond issues through the town of Mt. Crested Butte.
“Economic stimulus is what we’re looking for right now,” Buck said. “This is monumental for us—to create an atmosphere of activity and job creation.
“We the town and the music festival see the Mt. Crested Butte Performing Arts Center as a community facility, to be utilized as an enhancement to the arts and cultural facilities in the Gunnison Valley,” Buck added. “The town’s experience working with the music festival has been nothing but transparent, above-board, and very cooperative. We’ve managed to do quite a bit in a short amount of time because we have a mutual vision and appreciate each other’s interests.”
The architects will meet twice in January and come up with a couple of preliminary sketches, according to Scheirle. The project’s budget will determine how many extra “bells and whistles” can be incorporated into the building, but Scheirle has no doubt it will be an aesthetic structure that will stand the test of time and meet the needs of the community as a whole.
“The more you twist and bend the more expensive it gets, but you don’t want to build just a square building… but that’s up to [the architects] now,” Scheirle said. “It can’t be a spaceship because it has to fit into Mt. Crested Butte, but it can’t look out of date either. We think it’s going to be a wonderful performing arts center.”