Time for Glendale to Taste Reality : City must plan carefully for Alex Theater and expect to provide a subsidy

When the Lancaster Performing Arts Center had been running for a year, and the books showed an operating deficit of $400,000, city officials weren’t worried. It was, in fact, about what they had expected. They knew that there is no such thing as a major municipal facility for the performing arts that is not heavily subsidized by tax dollars.

Lancaster officials didn’t mind, though, because they saw benefits that went far beyond packed houses and an impressive calendar of events. It was part of the cost of doing business at a time when private enterprise in California seemed to be doing little more than fleeing the state, much less choosing to settle here.

“This can only be good for us,” Lancaster City Manager Jim Gilley said at the time, “If we bring in the president of some corporation that is considering putting a plant here, imagine what it will do for us if we can bring him into (the performing arts center) and show him what is available in this city. This building is not just for entertainment. It’s an investment for the future.”

Perhaps the city of Glendale should have viewed the historic and newly restored Alex Theater in the same light--as something that was going cost the city some money, but that might make up for that cost in other ways.

Instead, just eight months into its first year, the Alex Theater’s management company is no longer running the place. Gone, too, is the money the company collected from 11,000 now-irate subscription ticket holders.

The lessons here are manifest for any jurisdiction hoping to have a sizable municipal performing arts center within its boundaries. We also need to point out that the Alex Theater can be saved, if the city of Glendale bites that reality sandwich and gets on with a more level-headed plan of what can be accomplished.

One of the first indications of trouble for Glendale officials came when their nationwide search turned up just one company interested in running the 1,500-seat theater. When the next search is conducted, it must be extended--repeatedly perhaps--until the city has a credible list of options.

The one company that was interested had successfully operated a 700-seat theater in Pasadena. But as Times reporter David Colker points out, this is not as simple as moving from a mid-size car to a full-size one. At twice the size of the Pasadena facility, The Alex’s operating costs would be much higher and productions would be substantially more expensive.

Also, the Pasadena theater company promised the absurd: an incredible calendar of events that was to come at no cost to Glendale taxpayers. The Pasadena company would provide everything needed to operate the Alex, including all maintenance and box office staffing. That would have made it the first major municipal performing arts center in the nation without a subsidy. It wouldn’t, and didn’t, happen. Moreover, the city of Glendale had no monitoring system in place to keep an eye on how things were going at the Alex. It ought to have a checks and balances system in place the next time around.

After all these promises, it came as quite a bombshell when city officials were told that the Pasadena company was broke, even though it had sold 11,000 subscriptions. The big shows that had been put on were cut-rate productions.

The worst of it was that Glendale officials believed that a company could do it on its own, even though a steady stream of advisers and consultants had said that a hefty, annual city subsidy of about $450,000 would be necessary.

Now the city has shelled out $600,000 just to keep the theater afloat for the rest of the year. That was the proper, if very expensive, thing to do. It will help to shore up some of the trust and confidence that the ticket-holders had, and lost.

Now, a search must be made for a management company that will not be in over its head running a theater the size of the Alex. And the city of Glendale and the board that oversees the Alex have to decide just how much of this enterprise they are willing to pay for on an annual basis, because a subsidy will be necessary if they want the Alex to be a major performing arts center. Chances are, if they do it right this time, it won’t cost $600,000 a year.