Many Uses, One Goal
Officials at the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts in St. Paul are in the midst of a $75 million fundraising campaign.
Image credit: Ordway Center for the Performing Arts
Editor’s note: This is the second in a three-part series on theater venues in St. Paul that are writing new chapters for themselves. On Monday, we wrote about Park Square Theatre’s $4.2 million fundraising campaign. On Friday, we’ll look at The Penumbra Theatre, which was recently forced to cancel two of its spring shows due to financial reasons. See our complete guide to St. Paul’s spring theater activity here.
Leaders at the Art Partnership – a collaboration between the Minnesota Opera, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Schubert Club and the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts – are working to finish a $75 million fundraising campaign to create a world-class venue in downtown St. Paul. In the midst of their efforts, Ordway President Patricia Mitchell and St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and Arts Partnership President Sarah Lutman spoke with METRO about what it’s been like to undertake such a significant project and how they believe it will benefit not just their organization, but the entire city of St. Paul.
METRO: Why did the Arts Partnership decide to build this new concert hall?
Patricia Mitchell: We all came together for a series of really long meetings starting in 2004 or so because the success of all the organizations at the Ordway has amplified two long-standing problems, which are time and money. I think that's no surprise. There's not enough time in the Music Theater [the main Ordway stage] for all the organizations that are resident there to do what they need to do, the way they need to do it. The money problem is the amount of money that it takes to maintain a building of the Ordway's quality takes a level of financial support that rent can't really be expected to bear.
The Ordway, not alone among performing arts centers, but certainly distinguished from many of them, gets no ongoing public support. When it was funded, it was funded without any sort of significant endowment for the building itself. We formed a strategic alliance, which is literally a separate 501(c)(3) organization called the Arts Partnership, to really figure out how to solve these problems. The solution to the time problem was to actually create a concert hall, where the under-utilized McKnight Theatre is, to create a purposed music hall, which the chamber orchestra could then move into for its downtown St. Paul concert. The solution to the money part is all of us together are raising a $32 million endowment to help subsidize our use of the building. It's the logical conclusion to 25 years of travail.
Lutman: At the same time the solution helps the four partners, it also provides really great new opportunities for groups and individual artists who don't currently have a venue and a stage to perform on in downtown St. Paul. There will be much more time available for other people besides us, so we're really excited to start sharing the great Ordway Center with more groups and artists.
What's the timeline of the project construction-wise?
Mitchell: The actual shovel-in-the-ground moment won't occur until we've finished raising the money. It's a $75 million campaign with the concert hall construction and the endowment piece. We're just at $55 million. The earliest it would open is the winter of 2014 and the latest it would open is the winter of 2015. It's a very complicated construction project.
Lutman: We want to keep the Music Theater open and functioning when we're all in there all the time. We don't want to make the Music Theater uninhabitable during that time. We want to figure out how to keep it open and keep all the plates spinning.
How have you been fundraising for the project?
Mitchell: The really interesting thing about it to me is it's a prime example of public-private partnership. We have $16 million in state bonding money and $3 million from the St. Paul Cultural Star program. There are very significant gifts from the corporate community in both the east metro and the west metro and then from foundations and individuals, so it's everybody at the table.
Lutman: The campaign committee is citizens from all of our boards of directors and other people, so it's not just one organization working on the fundraising, we're working on it together. There are the mayor and other civic leaders as well, so they've really been working hard to lead this fundraising.
How has it been fundraising for the performing arts in a recession?
Mitchell: I think the fact that we've raised $55 million in this economic climate is a testament to what a great project it is. The right projects can still happen. It may take a little bit longer than one would wish, although it hasn't taken as long as many capital campaigns. I think the fact that's it's the four organizations working together is very compelling to donors.
What do you think has made the Arts Partnership particularly successful and able to do campaigns and renovations like this?
Mitchell: I think it is the significance of the project to the community and that it represents a solution to a long-term set of problems. I think it's also the four organizations working together collaboratively.
Lutman: There's another thing that I'll say since Patricia runs the Ordway and maybe she'll be too bashful. The Ordway is the crown jewel of the Twin Cities, and it draws visitors from all across the state and region, both school children and citizens from every direction in the Twin Cities. It's a beautiful theater and a place people love to be in. The design of this new concert hall actually enhances the building. It's a really good thing for downtown St. Paul for the Ordway to be able to expand its capacity and have an even greater effect on vitality. It has all the things that the city needs to be vibrant.
Do you find that you're particularly engrained in the city of St. Paul?
Mitchell: The Ordway audience is pretty equally divided between the east and west metro. People are accustomed to coming here for the things the Ordway offers. Yes, it is particularly important to St. Paul economically in terms of the vitality it brings to the city, but it's extremely important to the region for the high quality of the artistic enterprise that is there.
What do you hope for the future of the Arts Partnership as you move forward?
Lutman: We've been exploring some other collaborative ideas, but I don't think we have anything to unveil today. We're meeting, building and fundraising together, so it's inevitable that we're going to find other ways to collaborate. I think every organization sees this as a really critical component to how they're imagining their future.
+ To learn more about how to support the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts visit ordway.org.
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