Everett moves ahead on kids theater
Published 10:50 pm Thursday, June 11, 2009
EVERETT — Economic jitters will not prevent city elected officials from spending up to $1.9 million to renovate a vacant downtown building to house a children’s theater.
The Everett City Council on Wednesday night clashed over a plan to overhaul a former KeyBank branch so that it can be leased to a nonprofit theater group.
The 4-3 vote came amid protests from businesses, City Council President Arlan Hatloe and Mayor Ray Stephanson, who urged the council to re-evaluate priorities in light of the recession.
Council members Brenda Stonecipher, Drew Nielsen, Mark Olson and Paul Roberts voted to move forward with building improvements and a lease agreement between the city and Issaquah’s Village Theatre.
Councilmen Hatloe, Ron Gipson, and Shannon Affholter voted against it.
The City Council a year and a half ago unanimously agreed in principle to lease the city-owned building to Village Theatre, which receives a city subsidy of about $250,000 a year to run the city-owned Everett Performing Arts Center, which is located across a parking lot from the KeyBank building.
Under a plan spelled out in a December 2007 memorandum of understanding, the city agreed to pay for work to the vacant bank building, including seismic retrofitting, asbestos removal and installing fire sprinklers.
For its part, Village Theatre agreed to raise money to pay for the construction of a 170-seat theater inside the building. The theater would serve as the new home for its Kidstage youth acting program.
Supporters of the plan say it isn’t about charity for a good cause.
“If this were an arts project without economic development, I would not support it,” City Councilman Paul Roberts said.
In addition to creating temporary construction jobs, it will also provide activities for hundreds of young people, bring about $4,000 a month in rental income and breathe life into an often lifeless area of the city’s central core, Roberts said.
Having activity at the theater day and night would also discourage loitering and illegal activity at a public plaza that the city plans to build next door in conjunction with the theater, supporters said.
Stephanson and Hatloe both originally supported renovating the building, but said they changed their minds in anticipation of a lean budget next year.
“Being able to distinguish between the city’s needs and the city’s wants” is important, Hatloe said. “We’re in an economic time that none of us have seen.”
Reporter David Chircop: 425-339-3429, dchircop@heraldnet.com.
