Denver’s Division of Theatres & Arenas is seeking $16.4 million in public funding for a 350-seat black-box theater, four rehearsal rooms and tenant offices in vacant space mostly in the Newton Auditorium.
When the main phase of a $92 million renovation of the auditorium was completed in 2005 with the opening of the Ellie Caulkins Opera House, these less-glitzy aspects of the project were left unfinished for lack of funding.
“We are a performing-arts complex, and we have, of course, great big venues,” said Jack Finlaw, the division’s director. “What we don’t have are these complementary spaces that most performing-arts centers have.”
Finlaw made the funding request Monday during a hearing before the cultural-affairs subcommittee of Denver’s Infrastructure Priorities Task Force. It will recommend which building and maintenance projects the city should underwrite with bond issues or other financing.
On Oct. 23, Finlaw will make a second presentation, seeking money for an overhaul of Boettcher Concert Hall, which could cost as much as $100 million. But he said the division is putting its current emphasis on this project, which the division has dubbed the Champa Street Creative Corridor.
“They’re both very important,” Finlaw said. “This Champa Street Corridor project is critical in the sense that it is finishing up something that we’ve already started, and it’s also very affordable compared to the Boettcher renovation.”
All the proposed facilities would be in the Denver Performing Arts Complex in undeveloped space along the Champa Street side of the Newton Auditorium (the former Auditorium Theatre) and the contiguous, interconnected Buell Theatre.
The centerpiece of the proposal is a $7.86 million theater that would be located on the balcony level, or fifth floor, of the Newton Auditorium behind the opera house’s fly tower.
The adaptable space, with movable seating and a resilient floor suitable for dance, would be geared toward smaller musical, dance and theatrical organizations that cannot afford to rent current venues in the arts complex but want to be represented there.
Its rental fee would be $350 a day, Finlaw said, and he expects the space would be used almost every weekend of the year.
“I love the big, resident companies, and I think they are really critical to Denver both culturally but also economically,” he said. “But the fact is that we really do want more diversity.”
Below the Studio Theatre on the fourth floor, or loge level, an 11,000-square-foot space would be transformed into offices at a cost of $4 million. Rounding out the project would be a $4.6 million conversion of space on the Newton Auditorium side of the Buell Theatre into four rehearsal spaces that could also be used as classrooms.
If it secures the necessary funding, the Division of Theatres & Arenas hopes to complete the Champa Street project by June 2008 – in time for the National Performing Arts Convention.
Fine arts critic Kyle MacMillan can be reached at 303-954-1675 or kmacmillan@denverpost.com.
