A cautionary tale of two community arts centers
It was quite a drama onstage at the Lakeville Area Arts Center Sunday afternoon. Before a full house, a cast of characters that included past and present mayors had the audience in tears.
At the 50th wedding anniversary party of former Mayor Duane Zaun and his wife, Mary, Lakeville Mayor Holly Dahl read a proclamation naming the arts center’s performance space the “Duane Zaun Performing Arts Theater.”
Zaun, who convinced the City Council to buy the old All Saints Catholic Church for conversion to an arts center when he was mayor, was overcome with emotion, as was Dahl, when the proclamation was read.
A few days earlier, a primary election in Burnsville yielded a more mixed reaction to the commitment by that city’s mayor to build the Burnsville Performing Arts Center (PAC), which is now under construction. Jerry Willenburg, a critic of the PAC in Burnsville, actually got more votes in the Sept. 9 primary than incumbent Mayor Elizabeth Kautz. He is running as a candidate who believes the city shouldn’t be building the $20 million facility.
Kautz and Willenburg will face off in the general election for Burnsville mayor.
The honor for Zaun and the challenge to Kautz are anecdotes that raise questions about the arts in two Dakota County cities. In one town, there are tears of joy and a standing ovation for the man who spent public funds on a center and in the other city, the mayor gets votes of protest from a segment of the community that has vowed to make Kautz pay for her support of the arts.
It set me to wondering how much of that difference has to do with the way Lakeville and Burnsville are different and how much has to do with differences in the scope of the projects. In pursuit of answers, I talked to Tom Barnard, a Burnsville resident who is the coordinator of the Lakeville Area Arts Center, and Wolf Larson, director of the Burnsville PAC.
Cautioning me that he really doesn’t know that much about the new Burnsville facility, Barnard said the Lakeville center “fits the community really well.” He said the 300-seat theater is the right size for community arts groups, such as the Dakota County Symphony, Applause Community Theare and the new Expressions community-theater group that was started at the Lakeville arts center.
Barnard said the size of the Burnsville PAC probably makes that center “more dependent on national touring groups.” The Lakeville center also won citizen support by preserving a historic building at about a tenth of what Burnsville is spending on new construction.
Larson said there is room south of the river for both facilities.
“The PAC is an entirely different type of facility than the Lakeville center,” he said. “We will have a main hall with 1,010 seats and a stage that can easily accommodate very large groups, such as opera, dance, symphonic orchestras and Broadway musicals.”
He said the center also has a 150-seat black-box theater for smaller groups, an art gallery and a space for weddings, proms and other events.
“We will be an alternative to the downtown Twin Cities model that arts consumers now patronize,” Wolf said.
So it might be that the Lakeville strategy of converting an old building to a new arts center was the secret to community support. And Wolf might be right that the market will support a smaller center, such as Lakeville’s, and a larger facility, such as Burnsville’s.
Whatever the case, I’m pleased that communities south of the river are looking at the arts as not only a quality-of-life issue but an economic development tool.
As anyone who lives down here knows, it’s not as easy as it used to be to attend plays and concerts in Minneapolis or St. Paul. I-35 just doesn’t work many hours of the day, and it’s hard to work up the energy for a trip to the Guthrie or the Ordway when there’s good entertainment in downtown Lakeville or, in a few months, in Burnsville’s Heart of the City.
Some of our communities might have started out as places to eat and sleep while their residents drove to the city for work and play. But suburbs are wanting to become more complete communities with amenities that make life more complete, and the arts contribute to a fuller life.
Tomorrow and Sunday, hundreds of folks from both sides of the river will visit the Lakeville Art Festival on the grounds of the city’s arts center. A month ago, several thousand enjoyed Art and All that Jazz in Burnsville’s Nicollet Commons Park, where the PAC is under construction.
Apple Valley has been putting on Ring Around the Arts for 16 years, and the city of Rosemount has proposed converting an old church into an arts center.
Without making any judgments about whether cities should build centers from scratch or convert old buildings into new arts centers, I’ll offer this from my personal experience as a Lakeville resident who moved from Edina to Lakeville in 1999.
When we lived in Edina, going to a play or concert always meant driving from where we lived to one of the big cities to spend our entertainment dollars. Once we moved to Lakeville, we would still head to the Guthrie or Orchestra Hall occasionally. But we could also enjoy the arts closer to home.
A few weeks back, my wife and I had dinner on the patio at Mainstreet After Hours in downtown Lakeville, then walked a few blocks to watch a play at the old Catholic church where Ann was baptized and confirmed.
Thank you, Mayor Zaun, for enriching our lives by giving us that cultural opportunity. This taxpayer thinks the Duane Zaun Performing Arts Theater was a worthwhile investment.
What do you think?
Larry Werner is editor and general manager of Thisweek Newspapers. He is at larry.werner@ecm-inc.com
