Wheaton park board's $19.3 million Grand Theater plan gets the hook

With a new report concluding that there's a high degree of risk in the proposal, Wheaton Park District board members have scrapped a plan to borrow $19.3 million to buy and renovate the Wheaton Grand Theater.

However, Wednesday night's decision doesn't rule out the possibility of the park district playing a lesser role in a dramatically scaled down effort to revamp and reopen the historic building in downtown Wheaton.

"I think we're open to other alternatives," said Ray Morrill, the park board's vice president. "But I think the park district at this point in time needs to take a step back and say, 'We're not going to be the leaders in this ... The project as presented to us is something that we just don't want to do.'"

Park commissioners hired consultant Jim Hirsch to independently evaluate an earlier feasibility study by C.H. Johnson Consulting. The Johnson report claimed the theater along Hale Street could compete "as one of the premier theater venues in the region."

Hirsch's report, which was released Wednesday, says a renovated and properly operated theater "could significantly contribute to the financial health and quality of life for the Wheaton community and surrounding areas."

But he also advised that experienced venue operators consider the $19.3 million plan for the Wheaton Grand to be "risky."

"The Wheaton Park District, and any other governmental agencies involved with the project, needs to determine if the potential benefits ... outweigh the risks," Hirsch wrote.

Hirsch, who is the executive director of the Chicago Sinfonietta, raised questions about the theater's ability to attract marketable artists, collect private donations and sell enough tickets.

Ray Shepardson, the theater's project manager, repeatedly has said he expects to sell 85 percent of the theater's seats. He plans to meet that goal by giving subscribers what amounts to a 50 percent discount on tickets in a "buy three, get three free" program.

While that tactic has "some potential to succeed," Hirsch said it's also risky.

"Given current audiences' constraints with time and leisure dollars," Hirsch wrote, "trends are clearly moving toward an a la carte approach to entertainment purchases."

Officials with the not-for-profit group that oversees management of the Wheaton Grand say they believe Hirsch doesn't fully understand their operating model.

"There are people who believe in subscription-based operations," said Tim Rater, executive director of the Grand Theater Corp. "We see lots of regional theaters that have strong subscription bases."

Rater also disagreed with Hirsch's claim that the theater's ability to book high-profile artists for one-week engagements "is problematic at best, and possibly inactionable."

"There are tens of thousands of artists that aren't working on a weekly basis that would fit that model," Rater said.

Still, park commissioners said the Hirsch's study raised enough issues for them to question whether the theater could generate the revenue needed to repay the $19.3 million loan over a 20-year period.

Now one alternative that is being considered is a $10 million plan that would reopen the theater as a 860-seat venue. Representatives for the theater, city, park district and Downtown Wheaton Association are expected to talk about that proposal this morning during a meeting at city hall.

"There's been a lot of time and a lot of energy spent on the model that we put together," Rater said. "But at the same, I think we have an opportunity to come up with a different model that fits the community.

"There's lots of ways to operate theaters," he added. "There's lots of ways to build them. We're just going to have to come up with something else."