Arts centre: to be or not to be?

October 17, 2009

Nelson City Council has a new- found determination to get some certainty around a performing arts centre, but as Geoff Collett reports, there is still much that is confusing and clouded. -------------------- The good news, for those who have been hanging out for some - any - progress on whether or not Nelson gets a new performing arts centre, is that at last, Nelson City Council has decided it's time to ask the public and make a firm decision on whether the project lives or dies.
The bad news is that what might at first glance seem a momentous decision is only the start of a fresh round of debate, undoubtedly meaning there is lots more squabbling and accusation to come.
And while the council seems keen to add some overdue certainty to matters, the weeks ahead will highlight that many of the details about what precisely is at stake remain uncertain - including questions arising from the council's own consultants, about the worth of going ahead with what will be one of the biggest council projects in Nelson's history.
Broad parameters are well known: the where (on the land next to the Rutherford Hotel, bounded by Nile St West, Rutherford St and Selwyn Place); roughly how much ($28 million, plus $4m for the land, according to the council's own budgets, with an assurance from its consultants that that will be sufficient); and, more or less, what (a precinct comprising a council-owned theatre, and a neighbouring privately-owned conference centre built as an extension to the Rutherford Hotel).
Beyond that, as Mayor Kerry Marshall himself conceded at Thursday's council meeting, some sizeable questions remain unanswered: for example, the precise nature of the partnership between a privately-owned conference centre and a publicly- owned theatre; how the two centres will be managed; and what contribution, if any, the Tasman District Council might make.
The mayor argued that trying to resolve those things now was getting ahead of the process: the first step is for the council to commit to or abandon the project, once it has listened to the public's views through a formal consultation process. Given that it has taken something like 15 years to get this far - and perhaps reflecting the distraction the issue has become for the council - there is a new urgency afoot. Councillors have set themselves a pre-Christmas deadline to make a final call on whether the project stays on the city's books.
The council's decision on Thursday included a series of clear positioning statements to set the basis for the consultation, such as "that council understands that Nelson remains one of the few cities of its size without a significant performance venue", and the city "does not have a significant conference capacity". The council says that the combined centres will have "a favourable economic benefit" and that it has already canvassed the "general affordability" of such a centre though its long-term planning process.
Individual councillors lamented how Nelson suffered in comparison to other provincial towns for its lack of such facilities. They argued that the "language" around the project needed to be refined to make the public realise that the facility, if built, would be regional, and used by the whole community rather than the preserve of an arts elite. Some predicted that, based on past experience of public anxiety about big-ticket council items, it would be accepted by the community once it was in place.
The council's various positioning statements were based on an "economic benefits" report prepared by consultants Berl. Councillor Ian Barker - the sole dissenter in Thursday's vote to push on with the project - highlighted that, although the Berl report is being used as justification by the council, it raises questions of its own.
For one thing is the difficulty of knowing how many new touring shows a purpose-built theatre will attract (and hence how much extra money might come into the local economy). Under the most optimistic scenario considered by the consultants, they suggested Nelson might earn another $1.1 million a year from the theatre; but under more conservative projections, the economic boost might be as low as $686,000.
He was also concerned about the conference centre half of the equation. While Berl highlighted how much conference business Nelson misses out on because of its lack of a big-enough conference centre (it attracts about 1 per cent of all "national delegate days"), the economists also cautioned that a bigger centre was only part of the answer. The city also lacks hotel beds and, potentially, enough air services to fully cater for big conferences.
Mr Barker's questioning on Thursday highlighted that, although the council has previously been keen to use the prospect of increased conferences to attract the public to the notion of a "performing arts and conference centre", the success of attempts to grow the city's conference business is largely out of its hands. City chief executive Keith Marshall said the decisions about whether the city had enough hotel beds, or enough plane services, would be over to the private sector to decide. Discussions with the hotel company had been limited to questions around developing links between the hotel and the theatre.
One issue that has been murky is the council's seeming about- face in its partnership with the Talley family-owned Rutherford Hotel. The hotel company was crucial to the council securing the chosen site. From what is known, the council has to pay the hotel company about $4 million for the land, while the hotel's share of the deal is to build the conference centre as an extension of the hotel building, which will then be linked to the nearby theatre.
In June, after a confidential meeting, the council announced it would "not seek a public/private partnership", and agreed instead that "additional funding sources [will] be strongly pursued later in the project". It did not explain why or even what the implications of that decision were. Only this week, after being pressed by The Nelson Mail, Keith Marshall said that the June decision was not meant to be a reference to the hotel company, but to other, unidentified potential partners.
Whatever the meaning, there is no room for doubt that a council- Rutherford Hotel Holdings partnership is now on. This week's council resolution was that "the best means of bringing such a project to fruition is for it to work in partnership with Rutherford Hotel Holdings", with the hotel company's part of the deal again being to build an extension suitable for the conference centre.
As for the theatre bit, the council has given a few hints about what it has in mind, even if Mayor Marshall was at pains to make clear that any designs are concepts only. A couple of sketches were showed to the meeting, but revealed little; there was also a short outline of a design brief which has been prepared by architects, which proposes:
A 1200-seat main auditorium.
A proscenium stage (a traditional stage design which is framed by an "arch") suitable for orchestra, theatre and dance, with acoustics good enough for opera, theatre and pop music.
A large foyer and entrance off Selwyn Place which will include room for ticket sales, and merchandise and food and beverage sales.
Designed with strong connections back to the city centre, including to carparks, along with sheltered entries and drop-off areas for buses and cars.
Linked to the conference centre.
Disabled access.
It does not include a second, smaller drama theatre, which has been suggested in previous designs. Nor, apparently, does it include any carparking. But such details, the meeting heard, were for down the track. The immediate question was whether the idea is the right one for the city.
The consultants from Berl have said that a new performing arts complex could "increase the national and international profile" of the region. Most councillors were more interested in the benefits for the Nelson community from finally getting a decent place for large-scale indoor gatherings, for the first time since the 1200-seat Majestic Theatre burnt down in early 1996.
And they agreed the time was nigh for some clear direction; otherwise, as councillor Ali Boswijk only half joked, the city will still be thrashing around on the issue in five years time, while all the people will have moved to a place which has got its act together around providing for the arts: Taranaki.