Board taking a fresh look at Performing Arts Center

RFPs going out to architects

 A lot can happen in a year and a half and the Mt. Crested Butte Performing Arts Center board of directors is going to find out just how much, as they prepare to spend the $17 million in donations raised to build what’s been billed as a world-class performance venue.
The first step in the construction process, now that the seed money is raised, is to throw out the “conceptual” old plan and start with a brand new look at the project, with a budget for perspective.

Mt. Crested Butte Performing Arts Center (MCBPAC) president Tom Seymour says the board wants to send out a request for proposals to a group of architects with experience in designing performance space. Slaterpaull, the architect of the existing vision, is one.
And although Slaterpaull created the renderings that have been passed around in promotional material until now, it’s no guarantee it will get the job or that the building will look anything like those renderings, MCBPAC executive director Woody Sherwood says.
But after the organization squeaked by a major fundraising milestone in 2013, piecing together donations of all sizes from 175 donors to raise the $17 million needed to get the project moving, there’s a palpable excitement among the board and staff that something will be built.
Seymour says the board is hoping to keep the actual cost of construction to $15 million, but notes they’ll ask the architect to offer ideas that would make building in phases a possibility, so accoutrements could be added as the funding becomes available.
“Basically we’re trying to review the project from an architectural perspective with a construction services company that could price things at the same time and do a preliminary schematic design,” Sherwood says. “In essence we hope to not only get a new final version of it, but also some scalable options in there so if certain parts need to be delayed we’ll know if and how we can do that.”
Seymour adds, “We’re simply trying to understand specifically, instead of theoretically, what we anticipate the cost to be.”
The original vision called for as much as $23 million to be raised. The fundraising isn’t over just because the $17 million benchmark has been reached. Seymour says when people start to see physical progress on the project, there could be a renewed interest in donating.
“When certain milestones are met there’s an added impetus in your fundraising. We’ve certainly had some people say they want to know that it’s really happening before they give anything or before they give more than they’re now telling you they’re going to give. One of the major milestones is when you’ve started turning dirt. It’s a human nature thing,” Seymour says. “As our fundraising consultant Bud Franks says, ‘People like to give to success.’”
Many of the charitable foundations that might give to a project like the MCBPAC also like to give to success and, because of that, Sherwood hasn’t tried to tap into what could be a significant source of funding.
“There’s a number of state and regional, and a few national, foundations that are very interested in projects like the one we have,” Sherwood says. “We’ll be researching those and finding appropriate ways to reach out to them. Every one has different reasons for what they want to do and how they want to do it.”
Seymour says foundations “want you to be way down the line before they commit for a lot of reasons. They want to know there’s enough money there to make it happen. And, secondly, why should they commit their money unless your community and your project demonstrate substantial local support?”
Despite the potential for more donations coming in, Seymour says, “We are not planning on turning dirt and hoping the Good Fairy shows up. That’s part of what the phasing is all about. But we won’t go build something that we don’t see how we can pay for readily.”
One advantage of having community support is that the MCBPAC doesn’t need to wait for the foundations to make their donations to the project. Instead, they hope to break ground in the spring of 2015, with a grand opening in the summer of 2016. Proposals from architectural firms will start to arrive in March.