With one major exception, the Madison Cultural Arts District renovation is successfully moving on with its construction plans. The difficulty, discussed at Tuesday night’s Overture Center board meeting, involves a potential $1 surcharge on all Madison Civic Center tickets.
Several involved parties voiced concerns about the surcharge, which could go into effect after July 1, 2002.
The money garnered from the surcharge would go directly to the city for the renovation project; the organizations who use the Civic Center could not use the money. Among others, Madison Symphony Orchestra director Richard Mackie argued the surcharge would stop some patrons from buying tickets and therefore unfairly reduce the orchestra’s revenue.
Since the city charges the orchestra $27,266 per year in rent and they sell roughly 27,000 tickets annually, Mackie argued the surcharge could basically double the orchestra’s rent while decreasing ticket revenue by deterring patrons with more expensive tickets at the same time.
“We’re looking at increases [in rent] over the next couple of years of over 100 percent,” Mackie said. “Balancing [the raise in ticket prices] with our mission of keeping our productions affordable to all people is a consistent issue.”
Other attendees said Mackie addressed a very important concern.
“It’s not a simple add-on,” Madison Symphony Board of Directors president Doug Rule said. “What’s happening is, you’re basically doubling our rent without any chance of recovery.”
Although Rule said he and other constituents would stand by any final decision the board may make, he was very concerned the surcharge would stop spectators from coming to Civic Center shows.
Although other community members brought similar concerns to the table, the surcharge issue was left unresolved. Board members offered a possible resolution of reducing Civic Center rent.
However, besides the surcharge dilemma, most renovation issues are progressing smoothly.
With most provisional concerns accounted for, the project has shifted to more logistic and monetary issues.
“We’re really just beginning to get to the tough operational issues,” board member Jim Ruhly said. “My sense is that the community is being given the opportunity to give input and that they have no major problems [with the construction].”
One success outlined at the board meeting was the Overture reuse and recycling project. Although the Overture board went forth with reuse and recycling efforts without knowing the possible costs or benefits, the total project savings attributed to this endeavor reached nearly $29,000. Sonya Newenhouse of Madison Environmental Group, Inc., outlined the successes and shortcomings of the reuse and recycling project for Overture. Working in conjunction with Wastecap Wisconsin, a nonprofit recycling consultant, Newenhouse found most reusable material of the demolished buildings could be donated back to the community by means of nonprofit businesses.
Eight such nonprofit service providers, including the Atwood Community Center, Habitat For Humanity, St. Vincent de Paul and Teen Loft marked items they could reuse. After marking, the items were removed, sorted and delivered to the nonprofit organizations. The City of Madison reaped benefits from these donations totaling more than $18,000.
By the end of deconstruction, 70 percent of the material was recycled, with about 4 percent being contributed to reuse.
