Tuesday, Feb. 07 2012 5:45PM
Arnold Hall could be put to voters in November
Cultural Facilities Master Plan presented to City Council
By Miranda Wycoff
mwycoff@lsjournal.com
Print
E-Mail
AIM
ReprintThe Lee’s Summit City Council may soon opt to put the proposed Arnold Hall renovation into a performing arts facility to the voters come November.
After a presentation last week by Webb Management Services on the city’s Cultural Facilities Master Plan, some City Council members wanted to get the cultural facility the city has been talking about up and running as quickly as possible.
In late 2008 the city embarked on the effort to remake one of downtown Lee’s Summit’s oldest structures into a performing arts facility. The city put $200,000 toward this effort and created the Lee’s Summit Municipal Building Authority, a 501(c)3 to spearhead the fundraising and plans for the project. But fundraising stalled with the economy, and projected completion dates of “late 2010” and “holiday season 2011” quickly passed.
“I’m prepared to bond out getting Arnold Hall done and go to the voters this November,” said council member Ed Cockrell.
“Look, we’ve built a salt dome for God sakes. We’re spending a whole lot more to teach our police to shoot straight – and I’m not saying that stuff is not important; we needed it. But I think we can bond out a few million to get this thing done,” he added.
City Council member Bob Johnson was also on board with the bond idea, saying he wants to see this project completed as quickly as possible.
“I’d like to move forward with Arnold Hall, and I’m not afraid of a November vote either,” Johnson said. “I’d like to get something done and quit jacking around.”
Council members Kathy Hofmann and Allan Gray also expressed their agreement.
“A bond issue for a project like this makes great sense,” Gray said.
Cockrell suggested a $2 million No-Tax-Increase Bond, but the fundraising campaign Encore for Arnold Hall estimates project costs could be closer to $4.5 million.
However, the plans the LSMBA has for the Arnold Hall renovation differed from those laid out in the Cultural Facilities Master Plan presented last week.
In that plan, Webb Management Services saw Arnold Hall as a “community arts and media center” with the existing Arnold Hall building renovated into a large gallery and exhibit space. Then, in later phases, a 300-350 seat theater would be added to one side of the building and studio and gallery space with rehearsal areas and learning spaces would be added to the other side of the building.
Webb estimated that the renovation of Arnold Hall as an exhibit space could cost $1.2 million, the construction of an adjacent theater could cost $15.2 million and the additional studio and gallery space could cost $8.9 million. However, according to Webb, that could be done in three different phases.
The city is projected to get an update on the current Arnold Hall status and to have more discussion on the Cultural Facilities Master Plan Thursday evening at the council work session.
“I think the City Council was thirsting for information, but now we’re in a situation where we are drinking from a fire hose,” Mayor Randy Rhoads said. “There’s a lot here, and I think we need to sit down and digest what we have here.”
The Cultural Facilities Master Plan also recommended improvements to the Legacy Park Amphitheater, a new deconstructable outdoor events and festival space; decentralized program space that would create spaces for teaching and rehearsing not in the downtown core; and an artist work/sell program for the downtown area that would develop “temporary pop-up studios in existing vacant downtown spaces.”
The plan also found that the demand in Lee’s Summit for a large performance hall with more than 800 seats is not there. However, if a project came along where another entity were interested in developing such a project, the plan suggests the city could be involved as an investor.
“I got my bang for my buck here,” Cockrell said. “This plan is imaginative, it’s creative and now some real thought needs to be given to this.”
