Wheaton merchants fixated on theater preservation?

With suburban towns trying to attract and retain businesses, a consultant says a group charged with promoting downtown Wheaton is more focused on saving a theater.

Cathy Maloney, a retail consultant hired by Wheaton, provided her unexpected criticism of the Downtown Wheaton Association during a report she made last week to the city council about her work.

Maloney said she's spent the past six months working tirelessly to assist downtown businesses and property owners, but she claims the Downtown Wheaton Association has been fixated on the proposed restoration of the Wheaton Grand Theater.

"A lot of time and energy has gone into that and has sort of taken the eye off what is really important right now - and it's retaining the businesses that we have and marketing them to the community," Maloney said.

It's no secret that Tim Rater, the association's paid manager, also holds an unpaid position as executive director of the Grand Theater Corp. The not-for-profit group that oversees management of the Wheaton Grand has been lobbying for a public partnership to renovate and open the 1920s movie palace.

While no plan for the theater has been approved, the DWA is trying to get a special service area extended so it could provide financial support.

"We believe strongly as an organization that the best thing for the downtown would be this theater open," said Rater, speaking for the DWA. "It would help the retail. It would help the property owners sell some of the empty store fronts."

Of the 50 to 60 hours a week that Rater devotes as the DWA manager, about 20 percent of that time is spent doing theater-related work.

The time commitment is needed, in part, because a group of Wheaton residents is trying to block the special service area from being extended beyond its 2011 expiration date.

Still, Rater said the DWA isn't focusing on the theater to the detriment of its other priorities.

"The fact of the matter is that we are doing everything we have done and then some," said Rater, adding the group just last weekend hosted a new event, a chili cook-off.

However, Maloney is correct when she points out the DWA is reserving some cash just in case the theater project is approved and needs financial support.

"So we are seeing them cut back on marketing - important marketing dollars that should be spent attracting shoppers to the downtown," Maloney said.

"I am worried about that because I see that there's things we could be doing to attract more shoppers to the downtown," she added. "And the focus is more on the Wheaton Grand Theater right now than it is on bringing in more members to the DWA and creating directories and creating more events."

Rater says most of the DWA's budget is used for events and marketing. The group is just spending some money differently. For example, the DWA decided not to spend $9,000 on billboard advertising to do more e-mail marketing.

Meanwhile, city officials say they might step in to clarify the situation.

"We probably do need to sit down with the DWA to look at what they're doing," Jim Kozik, the city's director of planning and economic developments, said "and maybe provide some more direction to focus them back on the traditional core of what they should be doing - and that's addressing the needs of the property owners in the downtown."