How Will Ahtes’ Group Pay to Renovate Salisbury’s Station 16?

As noted here earlier this month, a group led by Bill Ahtes wants the city of Salisbury to donate the soon to be retired Station 16 to them for purposes of turning the building into a theater. Lest we all forget, we have already gone through this once before with the Boulevard Theatre on Main Street.

In this morning’s Daily Times was an article about the auctioning off of mementos from the Boulevard and how this was to benefit SWAC, the Salisbury-Wicomico Arts Council. Buried in what was meant to be a warm and snuggly story about the arts community in Wicomico County were some interesting bits of information that should cause the Salisbury City Council to pause before handing over a valuable piece of real estate to Mr. Ahtes and his group.

To be fair, let’s get all of the players straight. SWAC was the beneficiary of the Boulevard Theatre. Mr. Ahtes’ group claims to be a different organization. While I am sure that legally, this is a different entity, it seems like pretty much the same bunch of folks.

Mr. Ahtes and company want to change Station 16 into a theater. Sounds great! How much will it cost? According to today’s article, SWAC was able to raise only $25,135 over a 5 year period for the renovation of the Boulevard. Does Mr. Ahtes provide any evidence that his little salon will be able to raise much more money, in a shorter period of time?

To quote James Gillespie, Executive Director of SWAC:

“There are a number of people in the community who characterize the Boulevard Theater as a failed project, but it raised our awareness of how much the community wants a performing arts theater,” Gillespie said. “We offered to return any donations or keep them to put (in the fund).”

The “community” wants a theater so badly that they were willing to pony up only a little over $5,000 a year?

The money SWAC received for selling the Boulevard ($175,190) is sitting at the Community Foundation. Is SWAC (which of course isn’t related to Mr. Ahtes’ group) planning on shelling out a significant portion of their “Wicomico County Endowment for the Arts” for this project? If so, what about the school children?

Wouldn’t the citizens of Salisbury be better served by putting Station 16 on the tax rolls? Would they be better served by a for-profit business that employs people an pays taxes?

For a town of Salisbury’s size there is ample theater space available. SU, Wor-Wic, Wi-Hi. Those are just the ones I know of personally. I don’t know what’s available at Parkside and I deliberately left out Bennett because of the new school construction.

As for now, the proposal is tabled, but keep an eye out. As soon as Barrie Tilghman and her compadres think that they can slide it through, they will.

cross posted at Salisbury News

Technorati Tags: Maryland, Salisbury, politics, Salisbury politics, Barrie Tilghman, Louise Smith, culture

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