Fundraising push continues for Mt. Crested Butte’s Biery Witt performing arts centern

$7 million to go, at a minimum

The board of directors for the Biery Witt Center knew it would be a long shot to begin construction on the performing arts center in 2015, and recent cost estimates have made it clear their suspicions were right. The board recently learned that it will need to raise an additional $7 million to $8 million in order to fund the project—about a third of the total project cost.

According to the center’s board president, Tom Seymour, the need for additional fundraising was not a surprise, but the amount was. “We have found that construction costs for this kind of building in our part of the mountains is much higher than we had anticipated,” he said.
To date, the board as secured more than $15 million, including a pledge of $7.8 million from the Mt. Crested Butte Downtown Development Authority. Now, the project’s architect and an evaluation by a national consulting firm have yielded cost estimates that confirm the need for the additional funds, and there seem to be no delusions: $7 million is necessary, but more would be better.
“There’s the building you want, the building you need, and the building you can afford, and right now we don’t have enough money to get the building we need so we are trying for that,” explained town manager Joe Fitzpatrick.
The board met on Monday, January 19 to assess the situation, and while the next phase of the capital campaign is still being developed, Seymour and Fitzpatrick both say things are full steam ahead. In addition to continuing fundraising, the board is working with the architect to tweak the current design to decrease costs, including repositioning the building on its site north of the Grand Lodge in order to reduce site work.
“We have said in the past that we hope to open in 2017,” said Seymour. “We continue to have that hope, though the realism of that date will depend in substantial part on what we get accomplished between now and the end of summer.”
Seymour says the board will build on its message from the summer of 2014, promoting the facility as more than a performing arts center. The board in fact sees it as a community center with the potential to not only bring in concerts and performances but to attract groups and conferences as well.
“The Biery Witt Center can serve as an economic anchor for this end of the valley,” Seymour explained, “but it takes a while to get that message out.” In a community where many potential donors are second homeowners and in and out of the valley, and in today’s culture of information overload, Seymour believes it takes time for messages like that to sink in. That’s the task for the board this coming year. For more information about the project plan, visit www.mcbpack.org.