FAYETTEVILLE -- TheatreSquared officially has the space for its new downtown home after a City Council vote Tuesday. Now it just needs to build it.
The council voted 6-0 with two members absent to approve a renewable 25-year lease letting the nonprofit theater company build on the city-owned parking lot at Spring Street and West Avenue. In return, the company guarantees it'll construct the building and use it to provide high-quality shows, free tickets for Fayetteville students and other benefits for the area.
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For more information about TheatreSquared and its programs, go to theatre2.org.
"We've grown from an idea to a nationally recognized organization," TheatreSquared artistic director Bob Ford told the council, thanking them for allowing the lease. "We are sincerely, sincerely grateful."
Tuesday's meeting also included condolences for the family of a city employee who died Monday and a vote to buy shares in Ozarks Electric Cooperative's new 1-megawatt solar array near Springdale.
TheatreSquared now leases space in Nadine Baum Studios across West Avenue from the parking lot. But its shop and offices are off-site, and Ford said yearly attendance has grown to more than 40,000. A 51,000-square-foot structure on the lot will give plenty of space for those needs, possibly a cafe or restaurant and more, executive director Martin Miller said.
Instead of a venue that shuts its doors after each performance, "we'd rather have public spaces that are accessible all day," Miller said Tuesday.
The council cleared the lease without much discussion, with Alderman Justin Tennant of Ward 3 saying the project will be "very, very special for our downtown." Mayor Lioneld Jordan said TheatreSquared and the neighboring Walton Arts Center could create an "arts campus" on Dickson Street.
TheatreSquared hired London-based theater planning firm Charcoalblue and New York-based Marvel Architects to design its home with support from the Walton Family Foundation. The final designs and fundraising details should be ready to share by late this year, Ford said.
Before the vote, Jordan asked for a moment of silence for Tyrone Rogers, 53, who collapsed and died Monday while filming a Washington County meeting for the city's government channel. He worked for the city for six years and left behind two children, city chief of staff Don Marr said. A memorial fund for the funeral has been set up at the Bank of Fayetteville.
"It's a loss, certainly, for this city," Jordan said.
The council then moved on to a proposal to buy 100 shares for $34,000 at the Ozarks Electric solar power facility. More than 4,000 shares are available to the cooperative's members, each corresponding to one solar panel. The shares credit members a few cents per kilowatt-hour generated by those panels, which should pay for themselves within eight years and save about $75,000 over the array's 25-year lifespan, according to the ordinance.
The purchase will help offset one-fifth new energy consumption at the city's regional park once it opens this fall, bolster the city's renewable energy use and prevent 100,000 pounds of carbon dioxide from being emitted from fossil fuels each year, sustainability director Peter Nierengarten said Tuesday.
The council approved the purchase without opposition.
NW News on 06/08/2016