Special Bd. of Aldermen — 5/2/17 Page 12
that’s in Portsmouth or Rutland or Keene or other communities where we’ve seen investment in cultural
facilities drive significant economic development. And learn from them what they did in order to achieve those.
Alderman Deane
But you seem to be a believe because you’ve used the “we believe” numerous times on numerous slides.
Mr. Webb
Well, 30 years and basically 400 projects around the country, | have seen what these facilities can do to
communities. In my experience the mistake some communities make is they put all their eggs in let’s fix up the
old theatre and hope that in and of itself will drive revitalization or economic development. The truth is adding
a venue like this needs to be thought as one element or a larger plan. Your economic development team
recognizes that. This is an anchor of a larger plan. | think if you approach it that way, you have a high
probability of success.
Alderman Deane
The Court Street building that you mentioned, did you walk through that building and provide information out of
the goodness of your heart or did you charge the city some money for performing that evaluation?
Mr. Webb
Tim used the word, beyond the scope. It wasn’t really beyond the scope because we looked at Court Street
initially to see if Court Street could be the primary solution. We recognized that that was difficult, but in talking
with lots of people in the community, we came to the conclusion that it is important. It is a community asset,
and there is a relatively efficient way to sustain the life of that building that becomes one of the pieces of the
puzzle. We've identified it as the longer term solution to be a good 300-seat plus or minus venue that is
available and accessible to the community and arts organizations as and when you are able to fund that.
Alderman Deane
Are you familiar with the history behind that building?
Mr. Webb
We struggled with it when | was here 12 years ago.
Alderman Deane
The one thing about that building is the communication lines that run to fire alarm. Fire Alarm used to be in the
front of that building. That’s an old hose tower out front. That building will always be there because if we
would have to borrow money to move all of that, that would be an absolute nightmare. That building, | don’t
know when it was built, maybe the 60s. It is not a functional building outside of a theatre. When you look at
the space in there, it’s a white elephant.
The other thing that we talked about that President McCarthy mentioned is we will be retiring debt, but we are
also letting debt as well. We have a number of competing projects that we are looking at. There’s the paving
project that we just approved. We have a building on Burke Street that we are looking at. There’s school
projects. There are a number of projects that are coming through. It will be interesting seeing what happens
with this moving forward.
