Guild Theatre (photo by Jen McCabe via Flickr)
If they wind up tearing down the Guild Theater, as now seems likely, I know just what movie to show as a final act: Citizen Kane, the story of a titan's less than gracious decline.
Developer Tom Moyer and his company, TMT Development, have a long history in Portland. For the past 20 years they have built and managed properties like the Fox Tower, the Broadway Building (more commonly known as the Ban Roll-On Building for its deodorant-like top), and the Studio Building.
But these are difficult times for the developer. The company's latest project, the $150 million, 33-story Park Avenue West tower, saw its construction halted after beginning in 2008. For the past several months, the site has existed as a massive hole in the ground, arguably the biggest symbol of downtown Portland's once booming design and construction industry grinding to a halt. Major tenants have abandoned the project, and TMT will be lucky to eventually build a smaller tower and probably still lose lots of money on it along the way.
On the personal front, Tom Moyer is also facing felony charges that he funneled campaign contributions to a candidate in Portland's mayoral race (an unwitting Jim Francesconi) in 2003 under the names of two other people. The 91-year-old developer could face five years in prison.
That's why it is all the more distressing to read David Stabler's report in today's Oregonian that TMT has declined the proposal by Opera Theater Oregon and a host of arts partners (such as Chamber Music Northwest, Third Angle New Music Ensemble and the Portland Cello Project) to renovate the vacant Guild Theatre. It could have been a bright spot, at least culturally if not financially.
Halted Park Avenue West construction site (photo by Micah Escamilla for The Oregonian)
Opera Theater Oregon, led by Katie Taylor, estimated it would take $1 million to $2.5 million fore renovating and upgrading the space. That's far less expensive, for example, than the $30.7 million that Portland State University spent on renovating Lincoln Performance Hall. But Taylor was asking TMT for 20 years of free rent to offset the costs OTO would have spent renovating TMT's building. And apparently that doesn't "pencil out".
Although Moyer's nonprofit donations have helped build public resources like the Marilyn Moyer Meditation Chapel at The Grotto and Director Park (between his Fox Tower and the Guild), he and TMT aren't in the business of charity. Why should they be obligated to give a tenant free rent? What about the other plans they might have for the rest of that building?
But the Guild Theatre is more or less the last single-screen movie theater in Portland. It represents a long cultural history here that is all but gone. Ironically, TMT also eradicated two of the other surviving movie theaters for its Fox and Broadway buildings: the Fox and Broadway theaters after which the buildings were named. What is this guy, a movie hater? Perhaps some early nickelodeon or silent film rubbed Moyer the wrong way in his childhood. Or should TMT really be called TNT?
What's more, I'd argue that because a stalled TMT development (Park Avenue West) has now remained a civic eyesore for so long, the developer could have made acquiescence to the aspiring Guild renovators a sort of penance. Any city needs its developers and builders to survive and prosper, but historic preservation and support for the arts are also part of a holistic urban mix.
Guild Theatre seats (photo by Brian Libby)
If TMT isn't going to let a grassroots array of arts leaders renovate the company's now long-empty historic theater on their own nickel, I'd certainly love to hear what the developer does have planned for the Guild. What is it that TMT has planned that would be a superior investment for the community and for the developer?
Relatedly, if TMT isn't going to lease the Guild as a renovated theater, one must draw the conclusion that eventually the space will be demolished. Do Moyer and TMT really want to add the stain of eradicating the last such theater in Portland to its cataclysmal failed tower and the felony charge?
This is not meant to vilify the developer or Moyer personally. Again, for most of their existence, both developer and company have been solid citizens. Even so, in a time of economic doldrums with little good news on the development and arts fronts, the Guild renovation proposal was a feel-good story around which the arts community was beginning to rally. It's too bad that it could contribute to a once proud but now sullied reputation.
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