Naperville's Comedy Shrine may get the hook
When he was cutting his chops in comedy and sharing stages with the likes of Tim Meadows and Steve Carell, Dave Sinker always wanted to be on TV.
He never dreamed of owning an improv theater in downtown Naperville. But now that he does, he dreams of keeping it.
That may prove difficult, though, thanks to frustrations caused by increasing rent on an expiring lease and a disagreement with the city on the allocation of money from its special events and cultural amenities fund. If something doesn't change soon, he said he's poised to shutter Naperville's Comedy Shrine at 22 E. Chicago Ave. at the conclusion of his four New Year's Eve shows.
“My (five-year) lease expires in March, but my plan, as of right now, is to go out with a bang with four sold-out New Year's Eve Shows,” Sinker said Friday afternoon in the theater lobby. “Then it's going to take me the rest of the time to get all this out of here.”
Currently there is not a bare spot on any of the walls within the 4,400-square-foot second-story space the theater occupies. Comedy-themed memorabilia ranging from the “Little Rascals” to “Family Guy” fills the walls and several display cases.
“You may see a huge sale. I may have a huge sale here of comedy memorabilia because my debt has debt. Or we may be moving to a new location,” he said. “If I had my druthers, I'd probably move back to L.A. and be the wacky neighbor on a sitcom, but I don't see that happening right now.”
The Shrine's lease is $9,700 a month, and Sinker admits to owing Inland Realty about $80,000 in back rent.
He says he began paying less than his full monthly payments about a year and a half ago in order to keep the doors open.
“When I stopped paying the full amount, Inland told me to submit an application for rent reduction, which is what they did for everyone here, and it's basically like getting audited,” he said. “It's huge. You have to give them everything like a pint of blood and your firstborn child. We missed the firstborn and then they didn't even notify me that they declined my application.”
Sinker believes the roughly 15,000 patrons he brings to the shopping center at the southeast corner of Washington and Chicago Avenue and surrounding establishments are valuable enough for Inland to work with him to lower his lease. So he suggested $6,500 a month.
“Those dear people come here to see a show and then they go to Bar Louie and all the other restaurants. They have dinner or drinks before or after the show, and that doesn't matter to Inland,” Sinker said. “But it is going to matter to the other tenants that are going to lose those 11,000 to 15,000 customers, and in this economy, I don't know how many of them can afford that.”
Beth Hicks, assistant vice president and spokeswoman at Inland Real Estate, declined to discuss Sinker's situation.
“We don't discuss any tenant lease terms and or discuss any current lease negotiations of tenants we're working with,” Hicks said. “We don't disclose any of that.”
Sinker called Inland a “billion-dollar corporation that doesn't care.” The proof he said is the two storefronts below his club that have been vacant for more than five years and the three, soon-to-be four, vacancies on the center's second story.
Sinker said he also has reached out to Naperville officials and pleaded with them to “take a long, hard look at the SECA fund, which is being misused.”He believes some not-for-profit venues, specifically other theater groups, have infringed on the private sector by occasionally renting out their venues and hosting adult performances.
“I pay into the SECA fund, so I'm basically paying for people to compete with me when they were given money specifically to be a children's theater or a community theater. Now they're branching out into renting their theater space and doing adult shows,” he said. “Well, time out here. Does that sound kosher to anybody? It's not.”
Singer also took a swipe at the city's Advisory Cultural Commission, which provides recommendations to the city council for the annual allocation of the SECA fund.
“I don't know who's on the SECA board, but they could very easily replace those people with a dart board and a chimpanzee,” he said. “Maybe if I played nice, I could get a not-for-profit to sponsor the shrine and throw some SECA dollars my way to lower my costs, too.”
Community Grants Coordinator Katie Wernberg said she has had the same conversation with Sinker, right down to the chimpanzee insult, and advised him that the Shrine would be eligible for SECA funds if he reorganized the business into a not-for-profit.
“The whole situation is really unfortunate because we want arts and culture in the city, and his organization provides that,” she said. “We would hate to see him leave.”
But one way or the other, it is a fate Sinker seems resigned to.
“I don't want to move. This is a major endeavor to move. I would love to stay here, but I can't under these conditions, so I'm looking at a couple spaces. But there's not a lot out there, especially in Naperville,” he said. “I can't afford what it's going to cost to do all of this again. An empty shell is going to be very difficult for me to move into unless there is a landlord willing to work with me and who sees the value of having us in his space.”