Nelson Council Will Negotiate Lease With Civic Theatre Society
By Bill Metcalfe
The Nelson Civic Theatre Society moved another step forward on November 5 when Nelson City Council voted to sign a letter of intent to negotiate a 20-year lease agreement with the Society to occupy the Civic Theatre.
Council’s decision was based on the Nelson Civic Theatre Society’s Feasibility Results and Business Plan, completed on October 15.
The group needed the letter of intent in order to provide a credible basis for grant applications to cover the significant costs of refurbishing the building. Councillor Deb Kozak estimates that a lease will be negotiated and signed by the end of January, 2013.
A “worst case scenario” budget
“Because of the age of the building there are a lot of unknowns,” says the Society’s Vice-President Roger Ley. “For example, we’re not sure if there is asbestos that will have to be removed.” He said they have budgeted for the full market value of materials and labour, although many business and individuals have offered volunteer labour and cut-rate materials.
“So the budget of $2.7 million is a worst case scenario,” says Ley. “It includes all construction, all equipment, brand new lobby and bathrooms, three brand new digital surround sound screens, with the idea that that number will come down as we get volunteer labour and hopefully find there is no asbestos.”
Two phases
The Society has broken the project into two phases to make it more manageable and to allow movies to be shown sooner. One phase, with a budget of $1.7 million, would install two screens in the balcony part of the theatre. The second phase would see the construction of a single screen theatre in the main floor.
Ley says they would like to begin with the two-screen phase because it would give more revenue and more programming flexibility in the early stages.
“The modelling we did,” he says, “was based on 50% fundraising, 30% grants and 20% debt financing.” The group will be applying to the federal government’s Community Infrastructure Improvement Fund, the Western Economic Diversification Program and to the Columbia Basin Trust, among other agencies.
Lease will monitor progress
In the meantime, the letter of intent will give the group full access to the theatre space once it purchases liability insurance, and public access once the Society has brought the building to the standards of the Fire Chief and the Chief Building Inspector.
The lease agreement will specify targets for fundraising and building renovations. The city will provide rent relief because the leasehold improvements will benefit the community. City staff will begin negotiations with the Society for a 20-year lease, and City Council will review the resulting agreement before it is signed.
Expensive, pragmatic, well researched—Kozak
“It’s a big dream and it’s an expensive dream,” says Councillor Kozak. “But I think they have been pragmatic in terms of phasing the project. What I will be looking for in the lease agreement are those success markers. Within a short period of time in the first couple of years I would hope they would have people in seats so they can generate income in that space for themselves. I don’t think that is an unrealistic goal for them.
“They were pretty realistic about the cost of bringing the building up to standard and they were realistic in their business case. The group did a tremendous amount of research with people who are in the theatre business— distributors and people who work with theatres in small communities.
“They brought in a fellow to speak with us,” continued Kozak, “a distributor for smaller theatres, and Council got an opportunity to speak with this guy and ask some very frank questions about how things worked. Whenever the city enters into an agreement of this type, especially with a volunteer group, my goal is always to see them be successful because it is for the good of the community and the city. We have to have a little faith. Certainly the fact that 1300 people have already signed up and paid for memberships indicates a pretty strong support for this venture.”
Squash Club friendly with theatre group, critical of council
The Nelson Squash Club was a candidate for the occupation of the theatre building as well. The club’s Vice-President, Pat Hodgson, says he bears no animosity toward the Civic Theatre Society, but that City Council’s methods were “seriously flawed.”
“The theatre group did a good job of gathering public support,” Hodgson told the Nelson Daily today. “There is clearly a desire to have a movie theatre. But we are disappointed in how it was handled by City Hall. We had a viable proposal that got pushed aside. Our proposal was not given fair weight.
“Whether a movie theatre is the best use of that building remains to be seen,” he continued. “It will be interesting to see how long it remains unused, at considerable cost to the taxpayer.”
Hodgson said the city needs a policy for deciding on groups using civic space. “In our case, we made a proposal, and without a policy it became a political issue,” he said.
Ley agrees that relations between his group and the Squash Club are friendly. “Pat and I sat down and met about a month ago. It was very cordial and really focussed on ‘here are the needs of the two groups’ and that was really nice.”
Volunteers needed
Ley says the way forward, in addition to the financial challenge, depends on people stepping up to volunteer. “This has been a nine person volunteer board. This project needs more people in the community to contact us and volunteer, people with experience in grant writing, fundraising, event planning, and social media campaigns. Now is the time for people to step up and help out to make this happen.”
