INC NEWS - Capitol's theater: before the vote... after the vote...

[John Schelp]

Before the vote...

"Providing a home for the American Dance Festival's
performances that presently are staged at Duke
University is the reason for considering a new theater
at all, Szostak said." (Herald-Sun, 6/2/04)

After the vote...

The ADF theater won't be built until ADF officials
raise about $8.5 million for it. If ADF is unable to
raise the money, Szostak said, the vacant space west
of the theater is in a better position to be developed
by someone else. (Herald-Sun, 9/9/05)

****

Downtown arts theater will be quite a display
Herald-Sun, 9 September 2005

Performers might not be the only ones in the spotlight
at a planned downtown performing arts theater --
patrons could also be on display.

Preliminary designs for the 2,800-seat theater include
a multilevel, glass-encased lobby that would put
theatergoers on a stage of sorts for passers-by.
Drivers headed south on Mangum Street could see
patrons sipping wine during intermissions or mingling
before a show under the current design for the
city-owned theater.

"It's a public space that's used at night, and when
you drive by it at night and you see 2,800 people in
it and it's lit up -- it's going to be a fantastic
site of Durham and of revitalization," Phil Szostak,
the project's architect, said after a Thursday night
forum.

The city plans to break ground on the $31 million
theater next summer, leaving architects with about six
months to finalize the design, according to city
economic development Director Alan DeLisle. The city
is calling the theater the Durham Center for the
Performing Arts, but DeLisle cautioned that the name
would likely change once the city secures a naming
rights contract.

The City Council approved a deal in June with
Nederlander and PFM to operate the theater. The
theater will be on the northeastern corner of the
former DATA bus site, near the intersection of Mangum
and Vivian streets. Szostak is analyzing ways to make
the glass lobby energy efficient.

Capitol Broadcasting Co., developer of the adjacent
American Tobacco campus, has dibs on the land around
the site. Its plans include building housing, offices
and retail stores.

Officials with the American Dance Festival are raising
money to build a secondary theater connected to the
larger theater. The latest theater designs call for
locating the secondary "black-box"-style theater just
west of the performing arts theater.

Initially, designs placed the black box theater east
of the main theater and included a glass wall so that
pedestrians and drivers traveling down Mangum Street
could watch dancers rehearse.

Szostak said he repositioned the ADF theater west of
the main theater to give drivers a better view of the
larger theater. Eventually, Mangum Street will be
turned into a two-way street, Szostak said, which
could slow traffic and offer passengers a better view
of the city's theater.

He denied that the black box theater was moved to the
other side because of concerns that inmates in the
adjacent Durham County Jail could watch ADF dancers
rehearse.

The ADF theater won't be built until ADF officials
raise about $8.5 million for it. If ADF is unable to
raise the money, Szostak said, the vacant space west
of the theater is in a better position to be developed
by someone else.