Southern Kentucky Performing Arts Center

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Plans for SKyPAC

The Southern Kentucky Performing Arts Center (SKyPAC) is a performing arts center that has been proposed in Bowling Green, Kentucky as part of development for a Signature TIF proposal. When built the project will be a state-of-the-art performing arts center containing a 1,600-seat proscenium theater for a broadway shows, symphonies and other concerts.[1] It will also feature a creative learning center which would include a rehearsal hall, a dance studio, music practice rooms and classrooms that may be used by the community.[2]

Contents

[edit] Project Development

[edit] 2000

The development for the project began in 2000, when House Speaker Jody Richards, D-Bowling Green earmarked $6.7 million dollars to start the project. The Board leading then spent $2 million dollars to buy land near Western Kentucky University, though this land was later swapped with city and the land was given to creating the "Greek Village."[3] The "Greek Village" was later turned into the "The Boulevards at Bowling Green" a mixed residential and restaurant district.

[edit] 2006

Until 2006, $500 more of the first alloted money was spend on administration costs but the project was not being further developed. In 2006, the Board hired then volunteer Mary Carpenter to serve as the program director paying her $75,000 in salary plus benefits and travel. In the seven months following Carpenter was able to raise one donation of $1,000. The project expected to raise $5 million.[4]

[edit] 2007

Currently the project cost has increased to an estimated $50 million dollars, though Carpenter contends that the project would cost $28 million after the city buys more of the land back. SKyPAC has also increased the money it was expecting from the TIF. Originally, it was expecting $12 million dollars with an immediate $6 million investment. However in February of 2008, the number had increased to $20 million.[5],[6]

[edit] 2008

Carpenter and her husband Howard have also participated in a public-opinion blitz to try and sway the city commissioners approval in their favor. The money to sponsor the ads came from other TIF District supporters such as Rick Kelley.[7]

Together with the long-term financing included with the cost of SKyPAC, the cost of this project will be more than double current estimates. Paying the bonds off requires that future tax revenues from private investments (that don't exist except on paper) in the District. “SKyPAC is receiving $20 million from bond sales,” said Warren County Judge-Executive Mike Buchanon. “Approximately $10 million will be sold with the transient room tax as security and the primary source of payment, and the other approximately $10 million is sold as straight TIF/Assessment security and as the primary source of payments."[8]

The total cost of SKyPAC will exceed those commitments considerably, according to Jim Parsons, the attorney and former Newport city manager hired by Bowling Green officials to negotiate the redevelopment deal on the city’s behalf. In his presentation to city commissioners May 6, Parsons listed the total cost of SKyPAC’s first phase as $31.6 million. That’s $28 million in actual construction cost, plus nearly $3 million for land, and more than $600,000 infrastructure cost. To pay for all that, Parsons lists $16.7 million as being “fully funded” - $10 million from the county’s hotel-tax-backed bond issue and the original $6.7 million the state appropriated for SKyPAC in 2000. About $2 million of that state money has gone, directly or indirectly, to buy land. He did not count the projected $10 million in TIF-backed bonds as committed.

Should SKyPAC still be short after the city buys its land and it gets $20 million in bond money, according to Mayor Elaine Walker, the arts center shouldn’t count on more help from the city, despite its prominent site in the middle of the redevelopment district. “They’re an agency of county government,” she said, pointing across the street from City Hall to the Warren County Courthouse. “I do not expect, nor would I support, more funding for them.”[9]

[edit] Parking Spaces

SKyPAC and Rick Kelley have different plans for how a parking space would be built for center. SKyPAC would like to have 315 parking spaces built while Kelley and other developers want the site to become commercial development instead.

[edit] See also:

[edit] External links

[edit] References

  1. ↑ SKyPAC Notice to Construction
  2. ↑ WKU Herald, SKyPAC plans moving forward, November 9, 2006
  3. ↑ New taxes, old projects , June 16, 2007
  4. ↑ Bowling Green Daily News, New taxes, old projects, June 16, 2007
  5. ↑ Bowling Green Daily News, New taxes, old projects, June 16, 2007
  6. ↑ Bowling Green Daily News, Financing downtown redevelopment, February 3, 2008
  7. ↑ Bowling Green Daily News, Financing downtown redevelopment, February 3, 2008
  8. ↑ Bowling Green Daily News, SKyPAC costs nearly double what they seem , May 31, 2008
  9. ↑ Bowling Green Daily News, SKyPAC costs nearly double what they seem , May 31, 2008
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