Special Bd. of Aldermen — 01-22-2019 Page 2
| am just trying to highlight what we’ve done over the last month. But it should be understood for the record that we
do have an operator selected with Spectacle Management, a respondent to the RFP that was put out late last
Summer/early Fall.
Some of the elements that | want to highlight this evening: New Market Tax Credit-wise, Niel Cannon and | were
able to send out what we call the Project Narrative, which is essentially the application for the New Market Tax
Credit to 10 different CDE’s. Something that this body should be aware of though is with the US Federal
Government shutdown; there is a possibility of a delay in the announcement of the new allocation. We don't really
know yet what that may be; we know that originally they were talking about February/March type timeframe for
announcements of an allocation for this new round. With the Federal shutdown | can only suspect it will be
somewhat delayed; at least that is the feedback that we’ve been given and Niel Cannon relayed to me. So that is
something for you to be aware of.
The Capital Campaign Committee is meeting regularly with our fundraiser, Betsy McNamara, they just recently
entered into the donor solicitation phase over the last month or so. They really focused on training, developing
strategy and refining the messaging to make sure that the group was confident and comfortable as they went out to
start to solicit donation.
And then lastly | wanted to kind of highlight some of the differing elements that the design team has started with us.
So to orientate you for the conversation, | am pulling up preliminary questions that the architect asked of the group
which is the genesis for how we are starting to tackle the designing of the Performing Arts Center. So guiding
principles was highlighted, program assumptions highlighted, events mix was highlighted. Now all of these
reference points in these preliminary questions came from another document that | just want to make sure this
group is aware of. This is something that | wanted to provide you more as back up than anything else to help give
you additional contest.
The Performing Arts Center Steering Committee this summer/last spring really spent a lot of time developing
different strategic goals; what they wanted to see out of the Performing Arts Center. So they developed a mission,
operating goals, objectives, how they wanted to see the functioning or the management of the day-to-day
operations of the Performing Arts Center, the event mix, the design principles that they really wanted to stick with
and see through. So this document is an important document because it helps provide a frame of reference that
won the operator, as | mentioned a little while back, Spectacle Management, understands to be the priorities but
then also is what the design team is going to work with as they develop a better program for us.
These preliminary questions get right into some fundamental questions such as who controls the parking area
directly behind the building, you know that is a very important question, more for logistics, when you have big
events coming in and loading and needing to unload, making sure that it is all really understood and worked out up
front is important. And again will be another way how the Performing Arts Center is successful; so again I’m not
going to go into every single detail here but | wanted to make sure that this group was aware of the more refined
conversation that is taking place on Wednesday nights.
So as you can see, it talks about the stage, the front of the house, the back of the house, technical support,
different type of ticketing, venue administration, and acoustical questions; all very important questions that are
evolving answers that we only just started discussing last Wednesday and we will continue to discuss in detail
particularly over the next few weeks and then definitely trailing off but until May. So again, this is just a document
that | wanted to pull up for you and it is more for your reference. | provided full copies of this packet this evening for
the Board of Aldermen and you can have it and it is also up on my web page | believe.
Lastly, we met with ICON/OTJ and their team of sub-consultants, you know, the acquisition the theatre designer,
their structural or civil engineer last Wednesday for the first time. This was a presentation that they presented to us
that actually corresponds or goes along with the preliminary questions as asked. They basically asked us to start
looking at the preliminary questions in advance and that was the context that framed the beginning points of our
conversations; looking at starting points, setting expectations, understanding the programing, starting to have a
