$60 million building includes 1,200-seat auditorium
The developer of Park Place has unveiled plans for a $60 million performing arts center that would host national acts and provide a modern venue the city has sought for more than 30 years. The proposed Maryland Theatre for the Performing Arts also would serve as the final piece of the Park Place development at the corner of West Street and Taylor Avenue that opened in October. It would be built at the former site of Admiral Cleaners. Before the board of directors of the Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts, Jerry Parks laid out proposed plans for a 1,200-seat auditorium that includes a glass-walled lobby, a state-of-the-art acoustics system and a terrace where concert-goers could socialize during intermission. The center’s highest point would reach 85 feet with a fly tower, part of the theater that holds stage scenery.
The goal of the project is to raise the profile of Annapolis as a hub for all types of performing arts, Mr. Parks said. It would serve as a complement to Maryland Hall, which hosts resident companies, including the Annapolis Symphony Orchestra and the Ballet Theatre of Maryland in a former high school auditorium.
“We see it is as an alliance,” said Mr. Parks, president of Jerome J. Parks Cos., the developer of Park Place. “It’s about the whole community.”
Now that the drawings are finished, the next step is to find public and private funding for the center, he said. Observers have long been skeptical about the task of raising millions for such a large-scale project, but Mr. Parks said he is confident there are investors to support it.
“There are certain individuals who have said to me ‘bring it on,’ ” said Mr. Parks, who also is a chairman for the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts.
“There is a lot of financial support in other areas that are not available to a local facility,” he said.
Mr. Parks has not submitted plans to the city. But once the plans are approved, Mr. Parks expects to take a year finalizing plans and about 2 1/2 years to build the center.
Even so, Maryland Hall officials remain concerned that a new venue will create competition for public funding, overshadow their organization and take away some of its resident companies, namely the Annapolis Symphony Orchestra, which has expressed interest in a larger venue.
Linnell Bowen, executive director for Maryland Hall, said her group is willing to have “future discussions” about running the new venue, but added there must be a plan to support and fund Maryland Hall and its resident companies, some of which are “struggling.”
“There’s nothing on the table for us now,” she said, adding that there is no formal proposal from Mr. Parks. “We’re competing for dollars and audiences. Short-term, the burden is on us.”
Mr. Parks said he spoke with Ms. Bowen and it was his understanding that she was going to form a small committee to help work “through the process and try to come up with a workable solution.”
The need for a performing arts center in Annapolis can be traced back to the 1960s, when drawings for such a venue were first unveiled, said Mayor Ellen O. Moyer, adding that the idea was later dismissed by the City Council. She said plans were revived in the 1970s when a state commission looked at a possible venue in a former vaudeville theater on State Circle that had the “best acoustics in town.” State property along College Creek also was considered but those plans fizzled, too, she said.
Ms. Moyer said a private citizens committee she chaired decided to use the old building of Annapolis High School as a center for Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts, which now educates more than 5,000 students each year.
By 2000, the city took another shot at the idea of a large scale performing arts center and commissioned a feasibility study that found Annapolis had well-educated and affluent city residents who would support such a venue. The 2000 study determined there were only two viable options for operating a new venue: a new nonprofit group or Maryland Hall, whose high school auditorium has not been able to meet demands of its various acts in recent years. The group that runs Maryland Hall was more open to running the new center when plans for a venue at Park Place were smaller and less expensive, but now plans appear too burdensome to take on, Ms. Bowen said.
She said she worries that the public and private funding her organization relies on to fund an annual $2 million budget will be at risk and would rather see more money poured into renovations for Maryland Hall than a new center. She added that some of her group’s resident companies might not be able to afford the rents at a larger commercial venue.
Not everyone agrees a new arts center will be a threat to Maryland Hall.
Carol Treiber, executive director of the Arts Council of Anne Arundel County, said she thinks the two centers can survive together, adding that the new Park Place venue would be busy with national shows while Maryland Hall would cater to smaller acts. But she is concerned about traffic the venue could create.
Ms. Moyer also is a strong supporter of the new performing arts center, saying there is a direct need to enhance “our cultural arts centers.”
“This really is a place for the vibrancy of all of the performing arts to shine,” she said. “Maryland Hall has filled that role for a long period of time, but we need to grow.”
To develop plans for the center, Mr. Parks hired Martinez & Johnson Architecture in Washington, whose president, Gary Martinez, is a Severna Park resident. The company has developed several national theaters, including the Boston Opera House.
Mr. Martinez said designing the Park Place center was like “putting a Swiss watch together” because the venue is proposed on a 1-acre site. The building also had to be tall enough to “allow sound to mix properly in a natural way” and designed for multiple uses, he said.
Mr. Martinez said the venue would have an adjustable acoustic system for the needs of everything from a speaking conference to a symphony or Broadway play.
The center’s main stage will have special flooring for dance and symphonic performances along with trap openings that lead to an area below the stage.
The orchestra pit also has multiple uses: It can be an area for musicians or raised up to provide room for additional seats and more stage. In the downstairs portion of the center is a proposed 75-seat “black box” theater for experimental and community acts and a 250-seat “thrust” theater that would host resident company performances.
Other features of the center include a glass lobby designed to accommodate “before-show” gatherings and gala events, Mr. Martinez said. It could possibly open into a restaurant area inside a third Park Place building designed to blend in with the performance hall, Mr. Martinez said.
“The idea is not to make a small pie, it’s to make it larger,” he said. “We look at it as a cooperative effort and we’ll continue to do that.”
