Bravo Orlando!
photo by Winter Teems
“Yes Virginia – miracles do happen.”
After more than 20 years of ‘never-say-die’ - dedicated work (and fund-raising) by hundreds of arts-lovers who have long realized that Central Florida needs and deserves a ‘world-class’ facility, on May 18 Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer announced the funding was finally in place for the brand-spankin’-new Dr. Phillips Center For The Performing Arts. One month later – after a joyful celebration ceremony – the Mayor turned the first shovel-full of dirt and broke ground for the center.
Surrounded by supportive City Council members (past and present) and a host of donors, Mayor Dyer said, “They have raised more money for this project than any single project in the history of our city.” Since the fact was well-worth repeating, that’s what he did. He repeated that glorious dream-come-true statement. The fund-raising for the new center – during a time of serious recession – is a miracle in itself, but perhaps more important is the series of political compromises that exemplify the way in which governmental foresight can move beyond partisanship to get a building built and provide thousands of jobs for the men and women who will eventually open the doors to the theaters.
Several years ago, Mayor Dyer and then-Mayor of Orange County Richard Crotty agreed to use Greater Orlando’s tourist development tax or “bed tax” which is paid by visiting tourists, in what would become a billion (with a B) dollar deal to: 1. Build the new Amway Center 2. Build the new Performing Arts Center, and 3. Do some major building renovations on the Citrus Bowl. But that happy announcement came before the great recession.
In the meantime, the Amway Center was built and seemingly overnight became a huge success, sold more Orlando Magic tickets than ever before and became a destination site for the most important touring concerts from Lady Gaga to Sugarland.
It was obvious to arts-lovers who supported the building of the new center that the same success would come to the new performing arts center once built. Create a magnificent new building – as they had with the arena – “and they will come” – both artists and patrons. Unfortunately, Mayor Crotty’s term of office ended, and the bi-partisan support for that vision left with him.
2008 and 2009 visitor numbers had indeed been down, but it seemed all those families who had save their vacation dollars (or Euros or English pounds for that matter), decided to visit Orlando – turning 2010 into a record-breaking year. Orlando set a world record for travelers, welcoming over 51 million visitors, the first city in the world to welcome more than 50 million guests in one year. Other than the visitors who find their way to our guest-rooms, those guests stayed in Central Florida’s thousands of hotels and motels – each visitor paying the bed-tax for each night they stayed here. The genius of this plan is that the funds used to make all of this happen are from millions of dollars paid by tourists – not by the citizens of Orlando. * (other cities take note, see side bar) Of the entire project budget, bed-tax dollars were originally counted on to pay for approximately one third of the cost of the Dr Phillips Center.
So revenues were back, major funding was in place and sighting the fact that visitor hotel taxes had increased dramatically through the beginning of 2011, the Mayor was ready for a ground-breaking celebration. Passionate but pragmatic, Dyer is confident that $43 million in hotel tax dollars will be available for the new center over the next four year, but he also has his funding insurance policy. In a monumental show of solidarity, several major philanthropists, headed up by Board Chairman Jim Pugh, have personally signed a line of credit for the new center. Even if hotel taxes were to falter, Orlando now has Plan B – a $16 million line in place to assure the building of the new center. That plan includes building two of the three performance halls from the original design. Under-stated power-house philanthropist, Pugh headed up the multi-million dollar fund-raising for the center and is confident the taxes will be there and the city will not need to tap the line of credit. Mr. Pugh continues to be re-assured. The most recent figures on international traffic at the Orlando International Airport show a strong and building 2011 increase of 6.78 percent over July of 2010 which broke previous records.
Even as he was signing the note, Pugh recognized the diligence of Mayor Dyer in bringing the project to reality. “We could not have realized this moment without Mayor Buddy Dyer,” Pugh said. “Mayor Dyer has made an indelible imprint, because he is unafraid to look forward and see things through. This vision was not just for Orlando but rather, what Orlando can do to impact our entire region.”
On a swelteringly hot day in June, a simple shovel-full of dirt became the significant beginning of the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts, a $383-million performing arts center housed on a nine-acre site across the street from Orlando’s City Hall. The Center will include two grand performance theaters, a community theater, outdoor plaza and performance space, rehearsal rooms, administrative offices, educational programming space and a community facility where special events can take place.
The center, as described by Phillips Center President Kathy Ramsberger, will include the 2,700-seat Disney Theater for large, ‘amplified’ productions such as Broadway, concerts and touring productions; a 1,700 seat ‘Multi-form’ Theater with the ability to transform in shape and acoustics to accommodate symphony, opera and ballet; and the 300-seat Jim & Alexis Pugh Theater, a multi-purpose room for theater, dance, music and education. Built in two stages, the Disney & Pugh Theaters will be the first to open. Stage 2 will begin soon thereafter so long as tourism taxes increases continue.
Anyone who has ever attended an event at Orlando’s Bob Carr Performing Arts Center, a dreary building with questionable acoustics, may now realize that Orlando may finally lift its head and claim its rightful place among cities that “care about the Arts.” All the philanthropists, committees, and leaders who made it happen were painfully aware that of the 30 largest metropolitan markets in the US, Orlando is the only major city that does not have a signature performing arts facility. After witnessing the tours and artists who have made the new Amway such an immediate success, many are excited about the potential success of the new Dr. Phillips Center.
City Commissioner Patty Sheehan, an early and constant supporter of the new Center says, “It’s important to keep our promises to the community to build all three venues offering everything from “monster trucks’ at the Citrus Bowl to the wildly successful operas by the Orlando Philharmonic. We owe a huge debt of gratitude to the tourist industry for giving back to the community and building this beautiful new performing arts center with the ‘tourist development tax.’”
Even during the recession, the center has raised an unprecedented $90 million from corporations including Disney, Darden, Dr. Phillips Charities, Tupperware and a significant number of individuals. With the gloom and doom news of high unemployment and decreasing property values, when the need is real and clearly stated, America continues to be a giving nation. According to The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University, U.S. charitable giving has exceeded $300 Billion (with a B) annually for the last three years.
According to Kathy Ramsberger, President of Dr. Phillips Center For The Performing Arts, “These facts and this project reflect that philanthropy doesn’t necessarily follow the economy. Philanthropy follows the mission of the institution, as well as the leadership behind the vision of the cause. Over $90 million in gifts have been pledged to the performing arts center and we still have much work to do, as both an endowment and annual giving campaign will be launched. The big idea can only survive with leadership and support.”
The leaders who have carried this vision to the ground-breaking stage have worked to make the project as inclusive as possible, especially with those organizations that will perform in the new facility. David Schilhammer, Executive Director of the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra, says, “The Orlando Philharmonic has been pleased to work with the Dr. Phillips Center on the acoustics and design of the future 1,700 seat theatre. Working with ARTEC (acoustician) and Theater Projects (design) is an honor, as they represent the best in the business. The Philharmonic looks forward to an acoustic space that complements and directs the sound of the orchestra directly to the patrons, and we will enjoy a space in which the orchestra and audience are found in the same ‘chamber,’ providing a more intimate orchestra experience.
Lisa McDevitt, who has run the operations at Flagler Auditorium for years and recently observed the arts funding situation in Florida by serving on a State Arts panel says, “I congratulate Orlando’s leaders for their vision in supporting the Arts, because an investment in the Arts is also an investment in your community – particularly now, because the project will stimulate jobs and the economy.”
Mirroring McDevitt’s statement, jobs and the economy are uppermost in the thoughts of politicos and citizens of Central Florida alike with a jobless rate stalled at over 10%. Compare that unhappy factoid with Mayor Dyer’s happy announcement that more than 100 new businesses have opened in Downtown Orlando in the one year since the opening of the Amway Center. Imagine the additional ‘shot-in-the-arm’ each of those businesses will receive when the new arts center begins drawing audiences just a few blocks away from the Amway.
Leaders also see the larger, regional impact of the center – to attract a regional audience, an audience which includes regional donors. To that end, they have already created two volunteer councils, including people from all over Central Florida. The Center’s ‘friend-raising’ arm, currently called the Circle, is a high-level committee comprised of over 100 regional leaders from Brevard, Lake, Orange, Osceola, Polk, Seminole and Volusia counties. Closer to opening, the Circle will become part of a larger body of programming councils, providing feedback and direction on activities in and outside of the building.
Ever since the creation of Lincoln Center, which revolutionized the entire West Side of Manhattan in the 1960’s as did the New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC) for the city of Newark decades later, strong performing arts venues are patronized by a wide audience region. Today both Lincoln Center and NJPAC bring enthusiastic audiences, volunteers, and donors from New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and more. The creation of the Dr. Phillips Center For The Performing Arts should not deter communities from investing further in the arts with an “Orlando’s already got it” attitude – it is a shining example of exactly how communities across Central Florida should design and implement their entertainment area plans on scales they can afford. Cultural tourists, stay longer, spend more are better educated and more likely to buy a second home.
In a press conference held at the City of Orlando’s Blueprint Employment Office, Commissioner Daisy Lynum emphasized the importance of jobs brought to the city through the creation of the new Center. Dyer has announced the project would bring over 3,000 new jobs to the city, and Lynum, who was instrumental in assuring that construction jobs for the unemployed, minorities, and women received serious consideration during the construction of the Amway Center, is doing the same for Dr. Phillips Center For The Performing Arts. While the arts are seldom seen as an ‘economic driver,’ this project is currently the region’s largest economic generator, with 3,000 jobs and over $300 million in economic impact for the Stage 1 construction alone. Everyone at that press conference was smiling in ways seldom seen over the last three years, but Lynum had one of the broadest smiles as she said, “Jobs, jobs, jobs,” and then smiled some more.
Stage 1 began in June with construction expected to take three years for an opening slated for 2014. To state the obvious, new performing arts centers are intricate and technical construction projects. As a result, new facilities may take as long as 20 years to be completed. From a design and construction perspective, this project took 36 months for design drawings to be completed, resulting in 3,000 pages of plans. Three years of technical planning and three years of construction is a short time, made possible in part, because a recession in Florida is the perfect time to put out-of-work construction workers – back to work.
Steve Janicki, long-time Executive Director of the King Center for the Performing Arts in Melbourne, Florida is uniquely positioned to see the long-term concerns in running a performing arts complex. “This is my 24th year at the King Center,” he says, “and we’ve gone through good times and bad times. My advice is to make sure the folks who run the new center build a substantial endowment to get through the lean times. The first year will be glorious, but the real work begins after that celebratory first year. Part of your mission has to be bringing young people – children – into the building.”
That piece of advice strikes home with Ramsberger and her team. She mentions time and again that Dr. Phillips Center For The Performing Arts is ‘mission-driven,’ acknowledging the center’s purpose is to create experiences on and off the stage for its regional patrons. “Arts education is vital to our mission,” she says. “The center will feature 10,000 square feet of space for educational programming, targeting students throughout the region. We already know we will reach an estimated 100,000 students regionally each year. The programs will be vast, diverse and impactful, including: dance, music and theatre, training seminars, school-day performances, educator workshops and distance learning opportunities.”
While our elected officials on the state and national level hold tea parties to decide that they can “reduce taxes” by taking the arts out of local schools, they also choose to ignore the hundreds of scientific studies linking increased academic performance with arts education. It is no coincidence that schools that embrace the arts, such as the Osceola County School for the Arts, consistently rank among the best. Named "American Top Public High School" by Newsweek in 2009 and one of "America's Best High Schools" by The Washington Post in 2010 there are seceral examples across the state of the success of arts in public schools.
Ramsberger and Company understand the position the Center can hold for those public schools which are not so fortunate. She says, “Our state-of-the art technology and facility will allow us to offer a new dimension of master classes, real time performance-based distance learning and residency instruction, along with cutting-edge learning opportunities new to this region. The more our region evolves academically, the more we grow socially and economically. As a cultural institution, we have an incredible opportunity to leverage these shared arts experiences to help strengthen our region.”
This involvement is drawn from fact and not empty promises. The people behind Dr Phillips Center are definitely on a mission. Performing arts centers nationwide are more than entertainment venues; they are at the forefront of arts education programming and community outreach. Last year, the LA Music Center hosted 13,000 activities in more than 600 schools. Tampa’s Straz Center reaches more than 60,000 children and adults through 550 arts education classes. The New Jersey Performing Arts Center has morphed into a culturally diverse town square community, offering more than 14 outdoor summer events annually, attracting over 35,000 attendees. Today’s centers are places for intellectual exchanges, meetings and conventions and special occasions like graduations, bar mitzvahs and weddings. According to Ramsberger, this will be no exception. “Our mission-driven Center will be a catalyst for positive change in this region,” she says.
Greatness has never been achieved by persons with small dreams. At the ground-breaking, Board Chairman Jim Pugh told the crowd, “Today, our mission begins – the mission of delivering a world-class stage for performing artists. We will inspire kids through education. We will give visitors even more to enjoy. We are creating a destination within a destination. Carnegie Hall is over 100 years old. This Center will be here longer than that. It humbles me to think our great-grandchildren will one day stroll through the Plaza or enjoy a performance in one of our three beautiful theaters.”
Deborah B. Allen of the Museum of Arts and Sciences in Daytona Beach says, “The opportunity to serve the cultural arts is a privilege and takes great passion. It is taking a lot of yourself and leaving it inside the institution.”
For years the heroes of the new Dr. Phillips Center – Mayor Dyer, Jim Pugh, Kathy Ramsberger and countless others – have left a part of themselves in the architect’s renderings of the building that will shape the future of Central Florida. For years there has been no building in which to “leave a part of themselves,” but in 2014, that will all change.
With an historic shovel-full of dirt, Central Florida has been given one more chance to enrich the lives of all its citizens. Bravo Orlando for taking the lead.
For more information on the new Dr. Phillips Center, visit their website - click here for renderings of the new center - click here
