Tacoma selects new manager for its historic theaters. Not everyone is happy with pick
.JPG "Managment of the Rialto theater in Tacoma is likely to change hands in the coming months.")
Tacoma’s historic Pantages and Rialto theaters are one big step closer to being under new management.
Tacoma Arts Live — which, in various incarnations, operated the theaters for four decades — exited stage left earlier this summer, shortly after executive director David Fischer issued a letter to the community and patrons indicating the tenured nonprofit had declined to compete for a new contract, citing a loss of trust with city staff.
Now, according to Kim Bedier, Tacoma’s outgoing director of venues and events, the city is in the process of hammering out a deal with the venue management company ASM Global, which she expects to be finalized in the coming weeks.
For city staff, it will mark an end to an ugly breakup that fractured relationships and created no shortage of hurt feelings.
For residents and those who have invested in the arts — and the downtown revitalization that they’ve helped realize — all that remains is a question not easily answered:
Are they ready to move on?
Clearly, not everyone is.
“It came as no surprise. It came, again, as a great disappointment, because personally I have spent the better part of four decades with others — not on my own — but with others trying to build … a place for the community to gather,” said Steph Farber of the city’s selection of ASM Global.
Farber is the co-owner of LeRoy Jewelers downtown and a longtime champion of Tacoma’s Theater District. He’s also one of more than 200 residents who recently signed onto a letter urging the city to slow down and contemplate what might be lost by handing over theater management duties to an out-of-town global entity.
With ASM taking over theater management duties, Farber fears the upkeep and stewardship of the historic theaters will suffer.
Farber said he’s afraid that the benefits the theaters provide “may well start to dwindle.”
On Tuesday, Bedier defended the city’s process, saying she believes the selection of ASM Global to manage the Rialto, Pantages and Theater on the Square will be a positive for Tacoma that she hopes people will come to appreciate.
Bedier told The News Tribune the city expected Tacoma Arts Live to compete for a new contract — which it hadn’t done since 2005 — but that once the nonprofit decided to decline and move on, the city’s selection process focused on the detailed submissions it received from other interested parties. For his part, Fischer again expressed his view on Tuesday that the city’s request for proposal — and the changes he believes it would force Tacoma Arts Live to make — were written in a way to exclude the nonprofit from the process.
“Tacoma Arts Live has never issued an objection to the City’s desire to run an RFP for management,” Fischer told The News Tribune via email. “Our only objection was regarding the process, lack of good faith/transparency and, conversely, the clear prejudice as to the terms of the RFP.”
In total, Tacoma received three responses to its April request for proposals, Bedier said, but only two were deemed to be “responsive” — meaning they satisfied the criteria the city set forth. A selection committee made up of city staff and three members of local arts organizations that utilize the theaters ultimately chose ASM Global over the Iowa-based VenuWorks, Bedier said.
“It was really close. Both companies really … understood what we were looking for, and both brought experience managing similar types of venues across the nation, and in ASM Global’s case, across the world,” Bedier said.
“We felt really confident that (ASM Global) understood what we were asking for and were going to be able to deliver it,” she added.
According to its website, ASM Global is “the world’s leading venue management and services company.” It was created by the 2019 merger between industry giants AEG Facilities and SMG, with a management portfolio that features more than 300 venues across the world, including locally in Kent and Lynwood as well as well-known U.S. venues like Las Vegas’ Allegiant Stadium and the Superdome in New Orleans. Citing the ongoing nature of contract negotiations, a representative from ASM Global declined to comment.
For critics like Farber, ASM Global’s worldwide interests and its lack of connection to Tacoma is a big concern. Compared to the local nonprofit Tacoma Arts Live — which for many years was known as the Broadway Center for the Performing Arts — ASM Global is a faceless giant that will inherently have little stake in the local community, he said.
Over the years, Tacoma Arts Live has helped to raise millions of dollars for the upkeep and renovation of the city’s historic theaters, Farber noted. Under ASM Global’s management, he’s convinced that level of stewardship and local fundraising will be impossible.
That’s why he’s hoping the City Council takes the time to listen to the concerns he and others are raising before signing off on a new contract with ASM Global — which Bedier expects to happen before she departs Tacoma for a new job in Southern California early next month. She anticipates the contract will go before the council during a study session, “likely Aug. 31.”
While Fischer said he will “assess, along with the entire community, whether or not the City adhered to the demands of the RFP, and in particular those demands that prevented Tacoma Arts Live from participating,” he did so with an eye toward the future. Tacoma Arts Live will continue to produce performances at the city’s theaters, he noted.
“Ultimately, we wish the new managers great success and smooth sailing, and that is a sincere wish, as Tacoma Arts Live will depend on their good work as we continue to be the primary renter of the City theaters,” Fischer said.
It’s a wish shared by many in Tacoma, even if not everyone is ready to turn the page.
This story was originally published August 19, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
