Chasing deadlines and a need to cut costs continue to haunt the Royal Theater renovation project.
Most recently, Guadalupe city staff submitted redesign changes for a grant it received through the federal Economic Development Administration (EDA) before getting the City Council’s approval.
“Staff had to submit documents to meet deadlines next week without council approval but did so with complete understanding that if the council didn’t support staff action, that it’s easy to tell the EDA to forget about it,” Guadalupe City Attorney Philip Sinco told the council on Oct. 8.
The City Council unanimously approved the project’s conceptual changes, allowing staff’s submission to go before the EDA during its next meeting (scheduled for Oct. 16), but residents advocated for more communication about the project moving forward.
“I’m very disappointed, dismayed, and angry at how the Royal Theater has been managed and handled,” Guadalupe resident Melanie Backer said during the Oct. 8 Guadalupe City Council meeting. “Since January 2024, huge mistakes have been made, large communication gaps—no communicating with residents and businesses in this town until things are too late.”
The project proposed a theater and a performing arts center for hosting live stage productions, musical events, educational and cultural programs, and a meeting space for local organizations to revitalize the historic site.
It received about $10.5 million in state and federal grant funding, but the project turned out to be about $3 million more expensive than what the city could cover. Guadalupe has been scrambling to find alternative funding sources while still moving the project forward—including a ballot measure that was rushed through the public hearing process, but it ultimately failed with a 3-2 City Council vote before it could go to voters.
“I know people have talked about capital campaigns and donors, but that is really a lot easier said than done. The problem underlying all of this is the EDA—the Economic Development Administration,” Sinco said. “That’s half the money we raised from grants … there’s great concern that if we don’t meet those deadlines, it could result in the loss of the project.”
Andrew Goodwin Designs, the contracted architect, had a “brainstorming session to help with this shortfall,” he added, and came up with a new conceptual design that eliminates an estimated $1.5 million in construction costs by changing the performing arts center from a three-story building to a single-story building. The funding gap’s other half would be covered by pushing back construction of project alternatives—the commercial kitchen and enhanced audio and visual facilities—to a later date.
“I might have the numbers wrong, but the project with the new design has enough funding to go forward without the project alternatives—those the city fully wants to construct at some later time—which is why the city wanted to do a capital campaign,” Sinco said. “Initially it was probably going to be for operating expenses and ongoing maintenance for the theater, but now we need to raise funds for the alternatives.”
Backer, who is also the Guadalupe Business Association secretary, said during public comment that it would have been great to get deadlines ahead of time to present them to the business association in an effort to get more community dollars in the mix.
“The manager has known about this funding gap, and we as locals, who are passionate about this project tonight, we need to get in front of the right donors to make this happen,” Backer said.
Project Manager Tom Brandeberry said that he’s been using the Royal Theater’s Facebook page to make announcements about updates.
“I haven’t done anything at this point because the council hasn’t approved it and the EDA hasn’t approved it, but I will certainly blast it out there,” Brandeberry said. “I will also say that as those plans go along … those plans will go to council for review as we did for other plans.”
Councilmember Christina Hernandez said that she liked social media but she didn’t think it was the best avenue for community updates and discussions. She added that there should be plans for public informational sessions for updates following the Oct. 16 EDA meeting.
“It’d be nice if we do have messaging coming from the city of Guadalupe, and it’s one message, just because I’ve seen forums where they get everything rattled up,” Hernandez said.
This article appears in Oct 17-27, 2024.
It would be more community, culturally and architecturally sensitive to design and build a performing arts space that reflects and respects the city of Guadalupe. This design seems cheap. It does not feel like a cultural epicenter that it should present to our community.