City wise to further study Hemmens
We've hammered city leaders pretty well over the last couple years for failures to provide adequate basic services like swift snow removal and leaf pickup, and we've been pleased during the past year by efforts to turn that around.
City leaders seem to have taken to heart the desire by people in town to focus on the basics and set aside the frills.
In that vein, the decision to spend $291,000 on a study to determine whether the life of the Hemmens Cultural Center -- the primary draw to downtown Elgin -- could be extended another couple decades would seem a prudent step. Council members could vote on this June 11 or 25.
Just 18 months ago, city leaders had stars in their eyes, having just visited several resplendent municipally owned concert halls in places like Dayton, Ohio, Fort Worth, Texas and Sioux Falls, S.D.
Mayor Ed Schock declared the then 38-year-old, 1,200-seat Hemmens obsolete -- a money pit that could not compete with other venues for A-list and many B-list performers, primarily because of its lack of seating.
The heart of Schock's point was that B.B. King will sell out a 2,300-seat venue just as he does the Hemmens, but because there are half as many patrons here paying his per-concert fee, the city has to pick up the difference. At the bigger venue, the city makes B.B.'s fee and then some.
Anyone with half an ear who has attended an Elgin Symphony Orchestra concert knows well the hall's lackluster acoustics.
The study that was conducted in conjunction with that tour of concert halls offered three suggestions: Build a $125 million performing arts center to replace the Hemmens (a price tag twice what city fathers had anticipated); sink $20 million to $30 million into extending the life of the Hemmens (with the likely result being the same problems occurring in a decade); or simply let the facility die a rapid death due to poor ticket sales and undesirable acts.
Since the release of that study in October 2006, the raging downtown construction boom has stilled, and people all over are cinching their belts in an ailing economy.
Too bad it took a downturn in the economy to force more grounded thinking.
The study at hand may sound pricey, but it amounts to a little more than a third of the city's annual subsidy of the Hemmens. It will focus more on what changes may have to be made in the building's structure and programming to make best use of the facility.
Add to this that the Elgin Symphony Orchestra, whose subscription list is primarily well-off out-of-towners, accounts for a quarter of the performances at the venue while generating only 5 percent of the revenue, and you know that the people of Elgin are concerned about getting their money's worth.
Whether the city ends up improving on or razing the Hemmens as a result of this new study, at least it will have given the old brown cube -- and taxpayers of the city -- a fair shake.