By Dan Craft
THE MORNING NEWS
FAYETTEVILLE — The location of a large performing arts venue will have to be determined by regional consensus that doesn’t exist today, according to a consulting group.
Arts Consulting Group recommended building a 2,200-seat performing arts center either adjacent to the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville or west of the Walton Arts Center in Fayetteville.
The venue, which would also include a 600-seat flexible space and a 100-seat blackbox theater, would serve Northwest Arkansas for at least 50 years if not longer, said Willem Brans, the vice president of the consulting group.
The Walton Arts Center’s 1,200-seat main theater is too small for many traveling Broadway shows and most major music concerts, and even the smaller performance spaces are used most of the time, said Herb Chesbrough, a senior consultant. The new venue should complement the existing center, not replace or supplant it, he said.
“The current facility is stretched to the limit,” he said. “It’s not that it’s obsolete, but you need additional space.”
Projected population growth in Northwest Arkansas and the increasing size of many arts productions both point to the need for more space backstage as well as in the seats, Chesbrough said.
The downtown Fayetteville and Crystal Bridges sites are the two best options among more than 40 sites considered by the consultants, according to the report presented Tuesday to the arts center board.
A possible location in the Pinnacle Hills development in Rogers was eliminated.
Interviews with stakeholders and potential donors to the $180 million project revealed discord concerning the location.
“Locating new facilities, possibly outside Fayetteville, remains contentious, and must ultimately be determined collaboratively on the basis of regionwide interests and by leadership donors,” Brans wrote.
“Location came up in every conversation we had,” he told the board.
No matter the site, the Walton Arts Center board should take the lead in promoting a new space, and needs to move quickly before any other group decides to build a large performance space, Brans said.
At least one for-profit group has recognized the need for additional performance space, and others could as well, he said.
Fayetteville Mayor Dan Coody mentioned the city’s wish to build a parking deck and hotel downtown near the arts center, and Ed Clifford of the Bentonville/Bella Vista Chamber of Commerce said land acquisition in Bentonville could be cheaper than in Fayetteville.
“I think every community in Northwest Arkansas would like to have a Walton Arts Center, but it belongs to the entire Northwest Arkansas area. And at the end of the day, the Walton Arts Center board has to make a decision about where this Walton Arts Center-North will go. And we will support it wherever it goes,” said Raymond Burns, president and chief executive officer of the Rogers-Lowell Chamber of Commerce.
However, Rogers needs some type of venue for gatherings, whether that be an arts center or an arena, and we will discuss that need further at the on Nov. 18 at the 2008 Rogers-Lowell Chamber of Commerce Leadership Conference, Burns said.
Rogers Mayor Steve Womack said it was disappointing to hear the Rogers location for a proposed center was no longer being considered.
“We still think that site provides the best possibilities for ingress and egress, and the closest proximity to necessary amenities: Restaurants,” Womack said.
“But if we don’t get the arts center, we will pursue something else. An arena is still on the drawing board, a place that host concerts, sporting events or things of that nature,” Womack said.
The $180 million cost estimate does not include any land cost.
Bentonville councilman Chris Sooter believes an arts center would complement Crystal Bridges, which is scheduled to open in 2010.
“Culturally, we are moving in the direction of becoming a more arts culture. So this is a great tie-in,” Sooter said. “We’re preparing for as much development as we can get.”
Fayetteville officials say arts in Northwest Arkansas has been anchored on Dickson Street since the Walton Arts Center opened in 1991.
“All of us as aldermen certainly want the Walton Arts Center to stay in Fayetteville,” sad Nancy Allen, a Fayetteville City Council member and a longtime supporter of the Walton Arts Center. “And I think we’re willing to go through quite a bit of effort to see that that happens.”
Several key steps can be taken without a firm location, Brans said.
The distribution of events between the existing arts center — jointly owned by the City of Fayetteville and the University of Arkansas — and the new venue will have to be determined.
Planning for a capital campaign, including a lead gift in the range of $100 million, can commence immediately. A regional group needs to be formed to promote the need for additional space, help determine a location, contact potential donors, plan a fundraising campaign and review preliminary architectural designs, he said.
Once a lead donor is identified, a capital campaign could begin, probably in 2011, and building could begin soon after if a location is selected by that time, he said.
“It’s possible we could collapse that into a smaller time frame, but there’s a lot of planning to be done, and I don’t think a consensus on location is coming quickly,” he said.
The Morning News’ Richard Dean Prudenti, Skip Descant and John Henley contributed to this report.
