BY BRADEN CARTWRIGHT
Daily Post Staff Writer
The Los Altos Stage Company is asking council tonight (Nov. 12) to pay $5.3 million for a new downtown performing arts theater, hoping to jump start a $25 million fundraising campaign.
The city would give $5 million for construction and $300,000 for a capital campaign manager to solicit large gifts from wealthy residents.
“We know they live among us,” Los Altos Stage Company board president Vicki Reeder said at a meeting with the Los Altos Community Coalition on Oct. 18.
Without a large gift to start fundraising, the downtown theater faces an uphill battle in raising enough money, a consultant found. “No one raised their hand and said, ‘I would love to give you $5 million and here’s a check,’” Reeder said. “Without that, our ability to raise funds to build a new theater is a much bigger lift.”
A group called Los Altos Residents did a survey in May 2023 that found residents wanted private donations and not city funds to pay for a theater.
“The safety of our community to provide adequate police, fire, utilities, and city employee services is much more important than entertainment,” realtor Terri Couture said. Reeder and Executive Artistic Director Gary Landis will ask the city for the first $2.5 million on Tuesday, and another $2.5 million once $10 million is raised.
They’re also asking council to continue setting aside a downtown parking lot where the 160-seat theater would go. Reeder and Landis declined an interview about their proposal.
“We prefer to wait until after the council makes a decision,” Reeder said in an email.
The nonprofit would need to secure one to four gifts totaling around $10 million to have a “difficult but not impossible” chance of reaching its goal, said a study led by Nate Levine of Building Blox Consulting.
A majority of council has supported the theater since voting 3-2 in November 2021 to set aside a parking lot between 2nd and 3rd Streets for five years.
“In all of our interactions with several city councils, they have encouraged us to continue,” Reeder said last month. “They have not said, ‘This is crazy, forget about it.’ They’ve said, ‘Keep going.’”
Councilwoman Lynette Lee Eng has voted against supporting the project, while Vice Mayor Pete Dailey campaigned on building a theater when he was elected in 2022.
Mayor Jonathan Weinberg said on Oct. 15 that he thinks Los Altos needs to have a theater, and the Bus Barn Theater is not in good shape at 97 Hillview Ave.
“If it’s going to cost similar or less to get a new theater downtown, in cooperation with the LASC, as opposed to spending money rehabilitating the Bus Barn Theater, I’d rather see the theater downtown,” Weinberg said in a phone interview during his re-election campaign.
The Los Altos Stage Company is planning to focus on major gifts in Year 1 and to finish fundraising in Year 2, the nonprofit said in a presentation for council.
The theater would break ground in three years and take one year to build, the presentation said.
In March 2023, AMS Planning and Research looked at what would go into a 160-seat theater.
The new theater would have 158 performances, 307 rehearsals and 197 classes, workshops and camps per year, AMS said.
To support operations, the Los Altos Stage Company would need to bring in at least $1.7 million per year, AMS said. The nonprofit brought in $300,000 in earned income and $150,000 in donations in 2019, AMS said.
Why is council hellbent to build this theater? If I want to see a live play, I can go to Mountain View, which has an excellent theater on Castro St. Palo Alto has one too, Lucie Stern, though I haven’t been there in years. But I just can’t see the demand for this place, especially 158 performances a year. This smells like somebody’s pet project, maybe one of those former mayors who seems to have an undue influence over the council. I say no city money for this project until private donors have contributed (not pledged, but actually paid) enough to open this place.
Know wonder people laugh at Los Altos. Let’s see… Wealthy niche hobby for very small group of white people? (check) | Unviable business model? (check) All we need now is for the derelict un-hireable spawn of some former state elected to be to run the place.
Los Altos leaders over the years wisely understood the value of fun. They created festivals, parades, community celebrations, and yes, plays. All of these events created reasons and spaces to gather, showing the true value of our town. For decades, Los Altos Stage Company has done a yeoman’s job putting on a variety of carefully chosen productions in a really-not-so-great facility. It seems pretty easy to see the value our local theater ads to our town. LASC deserves our support because it is good business.
Value can be quantified. There is no value here. The only thing certain here is that sometime within the next three years Los Altos will be asking taxpayers to cover this loss.