Arts Alive

EDMONDS – Former Cascade Symphony Orchestra conductor and music director Bob Anderson used to wonder how the orchestra got as many people to its concerts as it did.

It surprised him that people were willing to “pay for the privilege of abusing themselves in those seats” in the auditorium of the former Puget Sound Christian College in Edmonds, he said.

Installing new seats is one of the many things that will be done at the auditorium as part of a $16 million project.

The project is expected to make the venue a better and more comfortable place to see a concert or dance performance and, therefore, make it a place where the live arts can not only survive but grow.

“This is something we’ve waited 40 years to have,” said Roberta McBride of the Classic Cascade Symphony, formerly the Cascade Symphony Orchestra.

The Edmonds Public Facilities District, a group created in late 2001 by the Edmonds City Council to study how an arts center could be developed, recently purchased the former college for $4.1 million. The purchase and remodeling will be financed by a combination of the sale of more than $7 million in bonds, to be backed by the money the PFD will receive during the next 24 years from Edmonds and Snohomish County sales and use taxes, and $2 million from the city’s real estate excise tax.

The work is expected to begin in mid-to-late 2003 and be completed by late 2004. When it’s done, the auditorium will have new, comfortable seats and improved sightlines for 800 people and upgrades to the sound, lighting, lobby and off-stage areas, and parking for 90 cars (see related story).

The new setting might enable the Edmonds-based Olympic Ballet Theatre (OBT) – which stages one weekend of “The Nutracker” per holiday season in Edmonds and the rest in Everett, Bellevue, Kirkland and Seattle – to have more performances in Edmonds, said director John Wilkins.

“It’s going to make it possible for us to maintain our artistic presence in South Snohomish County and Edmonds,” Wilkins said.

Because the lighting is bad in the 63-year-old auditorium, the OBT has to spend $5,000 to $6,000 per show to rent its own lighting, Wilkins said. Saving that money might enable the OBT to have more shows in the new auditorium, he said. He added that he assumes the new rental rates will be within a “reasonable range.”

Improving this and the rigging at the facility, which Wilkins called “old and dangerous in some ways,” will enable the OBT to do “much more elaborate productions and higher quality” shows, he said.

Other inadequacies at the facility include poor acoustics and sight lines and outdated restrooms, concessions and parking, Wilkins and McBride said. Fixing these will no doubt make the facility a more attractive venue for patrons, they said.

“I’m so glad they’re planning for that,” McBride said of the parking, which she said has been particularly troublesome at events. The former college is located in a residential neighborhood, about two blocks from parking at the city of Edmonds Public Safety Complex.

The parking plan involves tearing down the classroom portion of the school and building a lot for 90 cars. The lot may later be expanded into a garage as money becomes available.

The new auditorium might be a place where Edmonds Community College students could stage their productions, said college president Jack Oharah. He said he has been discussing the possibility of a “mutually beneficial” arrangement with the PFD.

“I think there’s a fit there someplace,” he said.

Oharah said the college has for about five years been making a priority of “more coordination and expansion” of its efforts in the arts. College performers have for years been using churches, high schools, and EdCC’s cafeteria and Triton Union buildings for shows, the president said.

“We have very limited capacity to do anything on campus,” Oharah said. “We don’t really have a venue.”

The remodeling will fulfill a vision carried by users of the facility for some time. Wilkins has been consistent in bringing up the idea of a new or improved venue, said Frances Chapin, city of Edmonds cultural resources coordinator. And Anderson, who started the Cascade Symphony in 1962 – it began performing at the auditorium from its inception – and remained with it until 1992, was a major proponent of past efforts to create a new place to play.

In the early 1970s, a measure to raise money for a new facility on the property now occupied by the offices of the Edmonds School District had enough yes votes to pass but not enough total votes for validation, Anderson said.

He stressed that the symphony has always been an area orchestra, drawing musicians “from Queen Anne Hill to Camano” and drawing patrons from all over South Snohomish and North King counties.

The auditorium “has been and will now continue to be the performing arts center of South Snohomish County, because nothing else will be built,” Anderson said.