Artsy smartsy: Valley communities invest in arts, culture, reap economic rewards
The Top Story by Chris Graham
freepress2@ntelos.net
Poll: Are the arts a sound economic investment for Valley communities?
Wall-to-wall people.
“Everywhere you go. Both sides of the street. Is there something else going on here tonight that we don’t know about?”
I had been appointed by my group of writer friends to check out the Downtown Staunton scene during a night on the town a couple of Saturdays ago. We’d gathered at Shenandoah Pizza for a concert featuring a friend, and after enjoying the band’s first set and some pretty good pizza, we’d decided that we wanted to see what else the Queen City had to offer us.
Try everything. There was more music up and down the street, two movie theaters with plenty in the way of coming attractions, and of course the American Shakespeare Center. It seemed to me that Staunton was printing money that night – the expression that I use to denote what I think is a good business idea being brought to prosperous fruition.
Turns out that they are printing money – pretty much on a nightly basis.
“We’ve got $2.4 million in meals taxes coming in in our next budget. Now, I’m not suggesting that’s all from downtown restaurants, but there are 17 restaurants downtown, and most of them weren’t here five years ago,” Staunton City Council member Dave Metz told me over lunch at one of those downtown restaurants, The Depot Grille, a couple of weeks back.
That time frame – five years ago – is significant. Because five years ago, the American Shakespeare Center was still in its infancy, and the Stonewall Jackson Hotel was still an eyesore two years away from the completion of a $20 million makeover.
The city contributed to both the ASC, in the form of a $500,000 loan that was eventually forgiven by city council, and the Stonewall Jackson, in the form of $10 million of general-obligation bonds that were controversial at the time they were announced in 2003, and in some quarters still are today. Metz recounted to me a conversation that he had with a voter at the polls during last month’s city elections along those lines.
“She said, I want to know if you’re going to stop spending money downtown. And I said, Well, ma’am, I don’t see that happening, because it’s generating a lot of money for the city. We put a dollar in, and get ten dollars out. So it creates money, which then takes the pressure off your house, to raise the real-estate tax rate,” Metz said.
“I’m willing to spend money anywhere if you put a dollar in and get x amount of dollars out of it. I’m always willing to spend money to make more money,” Metz said.
“We try to encourage that development, and I’m very optimistic about what we’re seeing down there,” Metz said.
The American Shakespeare Center was once controversial itself – particularly the part about the forgiven $500,000 loan. It took a while for the center to reach its forecast potential in part because of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks that preceded its public opening a week later and that made it difficult for businesses across the tourism-industry spectrum to make ends meet for several years thereafter. But now the Shakespeare Center can boast of an economic impact on Staunton of $4.6 million a year, and a direct impact on local-government revenues exceeding $150,000 annually.
“People sometimes think of the arts as just something for quality of life or for creativity. But we think of it as economic development,” said Erik Curren, the marketing director at the American Shakespeare Center. “Not only do the arts create jobs and generate tax revenues, they bring in tourists, they help raise real-estate values, which helps all homeowners, and by generally contributing to prosperity in the community, the arts indirectly fund all the services that would have to be provided by local government anyway – police, fire, the schools. All those things have more money because Blackfriars and other arts organizations are in Staunton.
“It’s really clear from these numbers and what we’re hearing from downtown merchants and people at City Hall that a lot of people in Staunton see the arts as a sound investment,” Curren said.
The arts are considered a sound investment in Harrisonburg as well – to the point where the city lobbied the Virginia General Assembly for the establishment of an arts and culture economic-opportunity district that gives arts-related business access to a variety of economic incentives to locate in Downtown Harrisonburg.
“There is a clear trend showing that downtown revitalization corresponds strongly to the amount of arts and cultural activities that are present in that area. It’s common that the arts and culture come in, the artists come in, they bring energy to the space, they recreate it, and then that builds the gravity for continued growth moving forward,” said Kai Degner, the executive director of the Harrisonburg-based Arts Council of the Valley and Democratic Party nominee for one of the three open seats on Harrisonburg City Council in the upcoming Nov. 4 city elections.
The more than two dozen arts organizations that are part of the Arts Council of the Valley alone have a projected economic impact of $1.04 million annually on the Harrisonburg-Rockingham economy. With 149 arts-related businesses in Harrisonburg and Rockingham, “If we took those 149 businesses, and added up what their expenses are, and what their event attendance is, we easily have a multimillion-dollar arts industry here in our backyard,” Degner said.
My hometown, Waynesboro, has some work to do to get to where Harrisonburg and Staunton are. Where The ‘Burg has Court Square Theater and Staunton has ASC and the Stonewall Jackson, Waynesboro has as its arts and cultural centerpiece the Wayne Theatre, whose future is very much up in the air after voters ushered into office an ultraconservative city-council majority that made continued city funding for the renovation of the downtown landmark a top-shelf political issue.
“The election gave everybody a bit of a pause with relation to the arts and culture, because I’m sure that everybody understands that the new majority of council really doesn’t value the arts and culture as being a contributor to the city’s economic base,” City Councilwoman Lorie Smith said. There is potential for the development of a thriving arts and cultural community in Waynesboro in the future, Smith points out – with a renovated Wayne playing the role of catalyst and the refurbished Waynesboro Heritage Museum, the Shenandoah Valley Art Center and the Artisans Center of Virginia in major supporting roles.
“I think what we need to do as a city, and what the citizens need to do, is see a continuation of the drastic upturn in participation in arts events,” Smith said. “I’ve seen a steady increase in turnout at Third Fridays events downtown. When I go to openings at the Shenandoah Valley Art Center, I’m seeing increased participation. We’re seeing new people moving into town who are taking advantage of these events. I think this community, at this point in time, needs to demonstrate to the new majority on council that these things are important, and they’re not important just because people like to go to them, but because as you say they have an economic spin on them that’s positive for the tax base.
“The more that we can utilize the downtown for this type of usage, it will continue to complement the businesses. I really want the city and the community to stand up and say, These things are important,” Smith said.
