Estes Park releases trust fund for proposed performing arts center

ESTES PARK — A proposed performing-arts center and hotel in downtown Estes Park took a step closer to Opening Night this week when the town board released nearly a half million dollars toward the development’s capital campaign.

Backers say the Rocky Mountain Performing Arts Center complex — including a 768-seat theater, a 20-room boutique hotel, a restaurant and rooftop bar and a glass atrium extending across Fall River — could be open by late 2019.

Fourteen years ago this Saturday, an entity called Friends of the Stanley Hotel had transferred $475,435 — gifts from 270 private donors from 1998 to 2002 — to the town to be held in trust in anticipation of creating a future theater project in Stanley Park. When the FOSH effort failed to materialize, the town kept the money while waiting for a viable plan for an arts center to emerge and sought applicants for its “theater fund.” That’s when backers of the proposed Rocky Mountain Performing Arts Center — to be built in the heart of the downtown business district on the site of an enclosed shopping mall that burned in 2009 — stepped to the plate.

On Tuesday night, the Town Board released the money to the 501(c)(3) nonprofit Estes Performance Inc. (EPIC), which is planning the downtown arts center.

The money “is a game changer, allowing us to implement our campaign plan immediately and allow new donated funds to be applied only to bricks and mortar,” said Stanton Black, EPIC board chairman. “It is a vote of confidence that puts us under immense pressure to perform as ‘the’ theater project that the town has sought for years. And, remember, this is a private nonprofit project, with no town ownership. But they acknowledge our efforts and recognize the huge economic and cultural impact it can make.”

The project had received unanimous approvals from the town’s planning commission in December and the Town Board in January, and another unanimous approval from the town’s board of adjustment in February when it sought code variances related to building height, river setbacks and special lighting.

Black said EPIC has determined that the hotel portion of the project can be financed and built independently and still meet economic goals.

“The architectural design has been modified and approved by the town as Phase One to be complete and operating before the theater is completed,” Black said. “This creates essentially two projects; and two funding quests. The hotel needs $11 million in conventional financing. The theater seeks a total of $19 million in philanthropy and other grants. Even with the hurdles and a suspended campaign, we have accumulated over $5 million in assets that apply to the theater, leaving less than $14 million to be raised.

“Now, fully approved, supported by the town, with cash for campaign expenses in the bank and a rent-paying temporary tenant on the property” — The Barrel LLC, a 60-tap beer garden owned by Lou and Ingrid Bush — “it looks good,” Black said.

The next step, he said, is finding an experienced executive director to lead the campaign and get the complex built. EPIC hopes to have that person on board by Sept. 15.

“Pursuing this project since 2011, we might be slow,” Black said, “but you have to admit we are persistent.”

on Facebook on LinkedIn