Thursday January 7, 2010
Gram Slaton, director of the Wheeler Opera House, says he’s completely backing off any further work on a proposed addition to the historic building; citing lack of support. The new addition would have cost 30 million dollars to build. There is about 28 million dollars now in the fund that supports the Wheeler Opera House.
There will be a parade on Saturday from Lion’s Park in Basalt to the site of the new 21 thousand square foot facility near the post office at the entrance to town. The new library, costing 11 million dollars to build, replaces the aging and comparatively tiny library downtown. It opened for use on Monday.
There may not be a parade for Winterskol? Debbie Braun will be in next week to talk about marketing Aspen now and for the summer, what’s in store for the Winterskol celebration and—the annual aspen chamber resort luncheon to be held next Thursday at the St. Regis Hotel.
Send your news tips and opinions to news@aspenglenwood.com, and listen to KUUR and KSNO radio!
Jim Laurence News
Posted in: Aspen
Thanks for this report, JIm.
Though FAIR went down in flames, I hope everyone will read or re-read our reportage from October 2008 in which we laid the groundwork for this entire story as it has unfolded over the last year and three months.
http://www.aspenpost.net/2008/10/01/fair-ambitious-wheeler-chooses-historic-expansion-over-endowment/
Also notice in comment #1 that Marilyn Marks was our biggest fan–before we set our sights on her. And that a key source was Paul Menter, who later turned upon Post Time News and said he was misquoted.
Menter, in fact, deserves the real credit for breaking this Wheeoer story open with a letter to the editor. Neither he nor Marks never understood that Post Time News was their greatest champion. Instead they destroyed FAIR and moved on to things that were even less important.
Best, Con Man!
This letter to the editor was written by
Wheeler executive director Gram Slaton:
Dear Editor:
While I always enjoy talking to Carolyn Sackariason on and off the record, the article about the Wheeler Opera House that ran in Thursday’s paper gives me a little more authority than I actually have. Thus, I think it’s important to take a few minutes to straighten out the record on where the Wheeler is with its expansion plans.
Is the Wheeler expansion onto the parcel of land immediately next door to the historic venue permanently parked? That’s a decision that’s up to City Council and not the Wheeler staff or board. The indication that we have from the present City Council is that the project as we have worked on it throughout 2009 is too expensive for these economic times, and that there is great reluctance to touch what Councilman Skadron called “Aspen’s Statue of Liberty.”
Fair enough; we take our direction from City Council, and they have asked us to continue to explore other ideas, as well as allocate 2010 funds for a definitive needs assessment. We’re happy to do this, and have both of these directives under way.
The Wheeler, unlike 99.9 percent of the performing arts venues in the United States, is in a very enviable position. We have a brilliant funding mechanism in place with the Real Estate Transfer Tax, which has not only allowed us to forgo annual fundraising that would pit us against all the arts groups that we serve, but also to serve them through a grants process that allocated $400,000 per year to our own arts community. It also has put more than $28 million into a holding account that can serve as an endowment. And we own the land next to the venue, so we always have the option of revisiting a plan for expansion west of the Wheeler, if and when such expansion plans — including program and price — make sense to City Council.
However, it would be incorrect to think that the Wheeler’s board and staff have discontinued plans for a Wheeler expansion. The idea of a $30 million expansion with an underground theatre as envisioned throughout 2009 is most likely “permanently parked,” but we have alternatives to consider and explore. In order to move that from study and planning into actual initiative again, however, would indeed require real demonstrated support from our arts community and City Council, which is appropriate. We believe that 35 years of documented history proves the case for a Wheeler expansion, and that given a future opportunity that makes sense, our arts groups and City Council will be supportive. So — the search goes on.
I think it’s safe to say that the Wheeler staff and board remain upbeat about the prospects, and we look forward to coming back to City Council and the public in the not-too-distant future with some substantive alternatives. We all learned a lot in 2009, and we’ll be putting that knowledge to work in 2010.
Gram Slaton
executive director, Wheeler Opera House