Chatham-Kent Council has voted in favour of taking over the operations of the Capitol Theatre in downtown Chatham.
An annual operations budget of $325,959, combined with an annual facilities budget of $217,927, resulted in a total annual budget of $543,886 being given the green light at Monday night’s regular meeting.
An in-house solution was recommended by staff, after Chatham-Kent’s internal bid blew away two other submissions.
Jones Entertainment Group and Studio Black were the other groups who submitted bids in the RFP process. However, their price envelopes were not opened as the submissions did not meet the minimum requirements of the proposal evaluation.
Aileen Murray, of Mellor Murray Consulting, provided a presentation on Monday with more details about Chatham-Kent’s bid.
According to a staff report, some of Chatham-Kent’s plans include:
– Viewing the Capitol’s role as an integral part of the downtown Chatham area and as a key contributor to the establishment of a cultural hub in the downtown precinct.
– Collaborate and support other theatre and cultural venues throughout Chatham-Kent.
– Engage with tourism stakeholders and take a proactive role in tourism product development and programming.
– Regular financial reports to Council
– An increase in the number of programs and services
– Establishing a Theatre Program Advisory Committee comprised of business, arts and other interested individuals to identify programming opportunities
– Consult with stakeholders with the goal of increasing the Capitol’s usage.
– Establishing a ‘Friends of the Capitol Theatre’ organization to assist with fundraising and sponsorship activities
– Reviewing the current TixHub system
– Identifying and implementing operational efficiencies with a target to reduce the Capitol’s operational budget by $9,178 within three years in order to maintain an annual subsidy of $543,886.
Chatham-Kent also made site visits to municipally owned theatres in Kingston, Brantford and Guelph while preparing their bid.
A solution was needed for Chatham’s 1,210-seat theatre, when St. Clair College served notice on October 15, 2015 of its intent to terminate the Capitol Theatre management contract, a staff report indicates.
“On October 19, 2015, Council directed administration to investigate the option to continue to own and operate the Capitol Theatre, as well as investigate other organizations that could operate and possibly own the theatre.”
Bob Crawford, general manager of community development, said in a report an RFP evaluation committee, comprised of internal staff, external members and other stakeholders was assembled to establish the goals, scope of work and evaluation metrics for the RFP.
“As directed by Council, an internal bid committee was assembled to submit an ‘internal’ bid to be compared to external bids,” Crawford said.
Now that Council has voted in favour of operating the Capitol, the next steps include a period of time to fully integrate, hire, and train staff and to implement administrative processes.
“It will be ‘business as usual’ during this time,” Crawford said in his report.
“Also, administration will complete a business plan on the Kiwanis Theatre to determine best usage, including the possibility of integrating programming and operations at the Kiwanis and Capitol Theatres to best support the Municipality’s cultural development priorities.”
What do you think about the decision?
Please vote in our poll below:
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This is a total waste of the tax payer money, they wanted to raise the farm tax to repair the bridges in Chatham which needs to be done, my opinion about the Capital Theatre is tear it down and build something that will create jobs,