The Aurora Civic Center Authority has scheduled a public open house for information on the proposed City of Lights Center development, and the three-phase project to put the authority on stable financial footing.
The informational session will begin at 5 p.m Thursday, Sept. 5, in the Meyer Ballroom in the first floor of North Island Center in downtown Aurora.
The session will focus on the three-phase project unveiled last week – featuring a 4,000-seat theater with a 600-person event space – as a way of ensuring the Aurora Civic Center Authority, or ACCA, can expand and pay for itself without future city financial help.
The Civic Center Authority manages the Paramount Theatre, the Copley Theatre, the School of the Arts Center, RiverEdge Park and the Stolp Island Theatre in Aurora.
Meanwhile, the full City Council had its first chance to discuss the three-phase plan this week during a Committee of the Whole meeting Tuesday evening. The City Council Finance Committee last week recommended the plan concept and the first phase of the proposal.
Aldermen said they are glad to have the public session, but some suggested the city might be moving too quickly to get the first phase of the plan approved by the Sept. 10 City Council meeting.
“I am somewhat concerned if Thursday night is enough time to make a decision by Tuesday,” said Ald. Patty Smith, 8th Ward. “A project like this that can take the city to another level, citizens should be very conscious of that.”
Aldermen are currently considering the first phase of the three-phase project, and city staff stressed that the first phase of that includes passing a $13.8 million bond issue by the end of the year to spend $10 million to buy the valet parking garage directly across from Hollywood Casino-Aurora, which ACCA owns; $1.3 million to reimburse ACCA for part of the Stolp Island Theatre construction; and spend $2.5 million to reimburse ACCA for reconstruction currently underway on the Riverwalk Promenade next to the Paramount Theatre.
It is not until the second phase, which officials envision the council considering in early 2025, that the council would begin the process of building a 4,000-seat theater with a 600-person event space known as the City of Lights Center downtown.
The center would be built on the block the city owns at New York Street and Lake Street downtown, which currently holds the former West Suburban Bank building.
Tim Rater, ACCA president and CEO, pointed out that without a program like the one proposed that includes partnering with the city, ACCA “would have to reduce programming.”
“That would mean eliminating the BOLD series (at the Copley Theatre), the Arts Center and it would change the Broadway Series (at the Paramount),” he said. “We would not be able to do shows as we do them.”
Rater and other city officials pointed out that would likely reduce the about 600,000 people who visit downtown Aurora for ACCA events.
Rater and Chris Minick, the city’s chief financial officer, stressed that while ACCA was covering its costs with the Broadway Series before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, post-COVID has changed the cost structure for theaters across the country.
Rater begin as the leader at ACCA in 2011, and, along with Artistic Director Jim Corti, began the Broadway Series in 2012. The Paramount and ACCA grew since that time, until the pandemic.
“We’ve been growing a little each season with the exception of COVID,” Rater said. “When I started, (ACCA) had 40 to 50 performances a year. Last week we had 26 performances downtown in one week alone.”
The city has used $11.5 million in American Rescue Plan Act, or ARPA, funds to subsidize the Paramount. Theater officials also have gotten financial assistance and grants from other entities as well, such as the Shuttered Venues Operating Grant.
Costs have changed for live theaters since the pandemic, Rater said. The theater deals with five unions that bargain for wages and safety, and materials for set pieces have gone up.
Rater said the three-phase plan “could eliminate the gap, but it’s a drastic change.”
“Not only does it eliminate our deficit, it will give us the ability to do better,” he said.
Ald. John Laesch, at large, suggested the possibility that the city could curtail the first phase to a smaller bond issue by not buying the valet parking lot across from the casino. That would make the bond issue just big enough to cover the $1.3 million to reimburse ACCA for part of the Stolp Island Theatre construction and the $2.5 million to reimburse ACCA for the Riverwalk Promenade.
“I think we need to take a slower approach,” he said.
But Alex Alexandrou, the city’s chief management officer, said the entire $13.8 million was based “on what ACCA needs” to cover deficits. Doing $10 million of it by purchasing the parking lot was so the “city could get something back – it was the parking lot.”
Minick said the bond issue would not affect the city’s property tax rate or any property taxes for Aurorans. He estimated the bond payments would be between $1 million and $1.25 million a year, and that could be covered from within the city budget.
He said part of the reason for that is the about $1.7 billion increase in assessed value in Aurora since about 2017. He said that has allowed the city to decrease its portion of property taxes by about 20%, and meet its public pension obligations.
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