Elaborate Plan Proposed to Revitalize Downtown Bellingham

Tim Ballard will complete a degree in journalism at WWU in the next couple of years. He likes to lift weights and watch movies.

The Downtown Renaissance Network has prepared a Centennial Project Plan for the city of Bellingham. The plan’s goals for 2002-2003 are to create more jobs within the city, develop a vibrant downtown, enhance the city’s cultural, educational and environmental health, fund and build new facilities and develop more ways of efficiently using the downtown area.

The Centennial Project Consortium, organized by the Downtown Renaissance Network,1306 Commercial St., includes Mount Baker Theatre, Bellingham Public Library, Bellingham Festival of Music and Whatcom Museum of History and Art.

Mayor Mark Asmundson said the Centennial Project Consortium is a group of citizens who have Bellingham’s future and civic center’s best interests in mind.

Being located between two major cities can be beneficial, said Mauri Ingram, executive director of the Downtown Renaissance Network. Bellingham can provide entertainment and education for people outside the hectic life of the metropolis. But Bellingham is not trying to monopolize the tourism industry.

The project itself is built on the idea of establishing a cultural triangle,” she said, “which already exists by the facilities that already occupy that area.

Not only do we have a growing community to serve locally,” Ingram said, “but this is also truly a tourist destination and downtown Bellingham is the single most highly visited community by tourists.

One of the things that is important to realize is we’re not trying to compete directly with Vancouver and Seattle but are providing an alternative experience.”

The work the consortium has been focusing on did not just happen, said Mayor Asmundson. It is the result of years given by various people, and now a group has banded together to see if their combined efforts might be more cost effective and provide greater benefits to the community.

“I am very grateful for the leadership, and the enthusiasm and the commitment to the overall community that has been shown by the many members of the consortium,” he said.

The plan, in its 13th year, follows the initial purpose of the 1992 Region Urban Design Assistance team proposal, which is oriented towards strengthening downtown Bellingham’s cultural, social and economic health.

According to Julie Car-terson, director of Belling-ham Public Library, the design team initially called what is today’s triangle the Cultural Crown.

“One of the things that the design team proposed was a civic cultural district, which was sited over by the museum,” she said.

Another group named Visions for Bellingham focused on Bellingham’s future development and growth with the goal of making the city a more attractive and interesting place, she said. The library and museum were recognized at that time as having some common interests that overlapped.

In 1996, the mayor’s committee on tourism included in the plan the redevelopment of Mount Baker Theatre.

Brad Burdick, executive director of Mount Baker Theatre, said the theater was built in 1927 for much smaller shows, which might now cause problems booking traveling shows that have curtains, stage props and numbers of people for much larger, stage shows. The theater still has the original lighting, which is much too dim, not to mention an inadequate air ventilation system.

The stage needs to be expanded to 45 to 50 feet and its height should be approximately 60 feet, he said.

The theater serves meals to as many as 50 performers in a small room approximately 15 feet long by eight feet wide on a foldout table 2 x 3 feet attached to a banister. They fill their plates and then take it out to eat on the bus.

Also, the 8 x 20-foot dressing room was not built for today’s shows. Changing areas spill out into the narrow 4 x 50-foot hallway directly behind the stage. It becomes crowded and hectic at times, but “the show must go on,” he said.

Improving the theater will provide more space for performers and allow for more varieties of stage shows to come to Bellingham, he said. The addition of a new 600 to 700-seat proscenium theater, similar to the original proscenium theater only smaller in scale, will accommodate the Bellingham Festival of Music better and allow new and diverse musicians a place to perform professionally.

“The Bellingham Festival of Music doesn’t currently have a permanent home and would certainly like one,” Ingram said. “The new theater would be designed to be acoustically appropriate for the types of performances that it would hold.”

The consortium plan also includes a 200 to 250-seat black box theater, she said.

Broadway shows and other large traveling shows that the theater might bring in are “revenue generators,” she said. Many of the community functions are not, and they do not fill up a 1,500-seat theater.

“Having a smaller facility allows for more community performances as well as more traveling performances that could actually improve the theater’s bottom line,” Ingram said.

Overall, Bellingham will have a very interesting cultural district when the project is completed, Burdick said.

“For every $15 million it costs for the project, the community will get $45 million additional revenue into the downtown core,” he said.

In 1998 the city organized a Downtown Development Workshop, Carterson said, which consisted of 200 to 250 citizens who were asked what image they wanted to present to the outside world that would distinguish Bellingham. The majority agreed it was essential for Bellingham to develop as a source of cultural creativity and enrichment. As a result the mayor appointed a Capital Improvement Advisory Committee in 1999.

“They did some surveys and heard some testimonies from citizens. The survey process included the library, which the citizens ranked almost equally with the fire department that was projected during that time,” said Julie Carterson, library director.

The library operates as two libraries: a branch library downstairs and a full-service library upstairs, she said. This burdens the library with repeating many staff functions and circulation services. There is also a storage space in-between the two floors, which houses 15 to 20 percent of the library’s collections, which will never be accessible to the public because it does not meet code.

“This building is no longer suitable for library purposes. The costs of operating this building are enormous. We serve over 1,000 people a day. Our circulation statistics continue to climb, and the traffic patterns through the library continue to climb.”

For these reasons it’s important to expand the facility, and the best way to do that is to relocate, she said.

“Public libraries are really the unique American tradition,” Carterson said. “It’s a way in which every man, woman and child can share the resources. It’s an institution that promotes the love of reading, it promotes the exploration of ideas, it promotes education and it promotes an informed public.”

A new library building is dependent on a positive public vote on its bond issue in September 2004. If passed, the centennial plan proposes to build the library across the street on Central Avenue. Plans for an underground parking garage are included.

Underground parking will allow surface lots that can be developed to a higher use and greater value, Ingram said.

The old library site will house the Children’s Museum and provide a place for traveling art exhibits, which the museum is currently unable to handle, said Tom Livesay, director of Whatcom Museum of History and Art.

“Old City Hall will be used for history exhibits such as period rooms,” said Livesay.

Period rooms are 1890 style bedrooms, cabins from the 1900s or basket weave exhibits from a certain era, he said. One of the museum’s preservation problems is variations in temperature and humidity. To preserve works of art, the temperature and humidity must be compatible for each specific exhibit.

“The lack of a humidity, ventilation and air conditioning makes it a hard time getting loans from other museums,” Livesay said.

Another problem for the museum is people are unable to contribute artifacts because the museum has no holding room, he said. The one thing that the museum does have is a small freezer for placing items to kill microscopic vermin that destroy artifacts but nothing large enough to hold something like a carriage piece.

“We’re hopeful that the Public Facilities District will help with funding,” Livesay said.

According to the Project Consortium Committee, the total projected cost is $60 million.

The $60 million includes the bond funding by the Public Facilities District as well as the bond issue for the new library, and it also includes some private funding, Ingram said.

“One of the results of the work that was done by the consortium was the decision by the Whatcom County Council and Bellingham City Council to jointly create a Public Facilities District,” said Mayor Asmundson.

The Bellingham-Whatcom Public Facilities District (PFD) will offset a percentage of the total projected cost.

The Public Facilities District is currently in the process of interviewing three firms to do a feasibility study that will help with funding.

“Not only does the feasibility study identify the capacity both within our community and nationally to get contributions and grants, but it also gives us a plan as to how to get there, and following that is fund-raising—something that all the institutions of the consortium will participate in,” Ingram said.

Many organizations throughout the United States provide funding for communities, said Dunham Gooding, president of the Public Facilities District.

“The fund-raising feasibility study will teach us how the money will be played out because they will not only interview local and regional corporations that might contribute, but they will also research national foundations who will support these projects,” he said.

According to Public Facility District’s March 2003 Most Frequently Asked Questions, a seven-member board appointed July 2002 by the Bellingham City Council and Whatcom County Council provides a means of funding for the city and county to operate convention, exhibition, cultural and sports facilities and related parking facilities.

The district receives a rebate of 33 cents for each dollar of sales tax collected by Bellingham and Whatcom County, which will continue for 25 years, said Gooding. The current rebate per year is $750,000, which will allow the city to sell a revenue bond worth $13 to $15 million.

However, construction uses must begin by January 2004 and communities must match PFD funding at 33 percent. Match funding might include cash or in-kind contribution, land that is donated and used for regional center sites, or funds from private foundations or from private sector partners as part of a public-private partnership agreement.

“This is very special,” said Gooding. “This is not an opportunity to pay our day-to-day bills. This is an opportunity to do something that’s huge and that will have lasting influences to the community.”

Currently, the arts generate $10.7 million a year and 350 full-time jobs, he said.

“By creating a tourism destination point, the city will attract visitors for culture, for shopping, for dining and for lodging,” Gooding said. “We will create a sense of place in downtown Bellingham that is remarkable.” §

•Alison Henshaw, Assistant Public Facilities District, 676-6979

•Brad Burdick, Executive Director Mt. Baker Theatre, 733-5793 x14

•Tom Livesay, Director of Whatcom Museum of History & Art, 676-6981

•Julie Carterson, Director of Bellingham Public Library, 676-6880

•Mauri Ingram, Executive Director Downtown Renaissance Network, 527-8710

•Dunham Gooding, President Public Facilities District, 676-6979