AURORA | Whispers of constructing a new, tricked-out performing arts complex in Aurora were amplified last week after Mayor Steve Hogan called for such a facility in his annual State of the City address, marking the latest call to action for a project that has been tiptoed around for nearly four decades.
Though scant on details, Hogan said that the city is poised to approve and construct a performing arts complex similar to facilities now open in Lone Tree, Parker and Lakewood, complete with theater and gallery areas as well as Class A office space.
But Hogan’s plea for a contemporary Aurora arts hub is only the most recent appeal for such a facility to be erected in Aurora. Plans and ideas for similar, arts-centric projects have been resurrected and dampened several times since 1979, which is when a proposal for a performing arts facility first went to Aurora voters, according to Alice Lee Main, former cultural services division director for the city. Main served in various roles for the city’s cultural services department from 1973 until she retired earlier this year.
After the initial ballot question failed by a narrow margin, Main said that city politicos have continued to table the topic of a performing arts center in Aurora every few years, though those conversations have borne few fruits.
Following several years of soliciting impact and feasibility studies in the late 1990s, Main said that the city once again asked Aurora voters for a bond issue that would fund an arts center in 2002. That initiative also failed.
Main said that she tolerated the 2002 ballot measure’s failure because that question had called for construction near the current xeriscape garden beside the Aurora Municipal Center, which would not have allowed much room for future growth.
“The Arvada Center has been able to expand on their building since they opened … and that’s what you need,” she said. “If you want this expensive facility for 20, 30, 40 years, you need to have it where you can add on to it.”
Main said that the 2002 project was proposed to be combined with a branch of the Aurora Public Library, and that the 1979 question had asked for a three-pronged facility intended to house a theater, a museum and a library — all of which would have been connected by a central atrium with communal gallery space.
Main added that in order to win the approval of constituents and council members in the coming years, an arts facility would have to be the result of a public-private partnership between the city and a private developer — a notion with which Hogan agrees.
“I’m talking about a public-private partnership, not a 100-percent city expenditure,” Hogan said. “If we look at a project that involves both office space, parking and a cultural and performing arts center, I think we can structure a similar type (of) arrangement … and get something that, up to this point in time, was thought to be impossible in Aurora.”
But exactly how that partnership might develop is still nebulous, according to Hogan. He said that he has had discussions with multiple developers and city agencies regarding a potential partnership.
“I’ve had conversations with the Aurora Economic Development Council, I’ve had conversations with city staff, I’ve had conversations with private developers, and I’ve heard enough that has told me that while there are obstacles, it’s not impossible,” Hogan said.
Though an admittedly indirect comparison, Hogan pointed to the recently opened Hyatt Regency Hotel and Conference Center — where he delivered his talk on Aurora boosting its arts infrastructure — as the latest successful example of blending the private and public sectors in Aurora.
Hogan said that his goal is to issue a formal request for proposal intended to lure interested developers by the end of the current year. He said that, ideally, a tentative partnership between the city and a developer could be inked by this time next year.
In the meantime, Hogan and other officials will table possible locations for a potential arts complex — something that has proved slippery for politicos and planners during past arts center negotiations. Those involved in past planning phases put forward various ideas for where to establish an Aurora arts center, with some suggesting a spot near the city’s municipal complex on East Alameda Avenue, and others claiming that the city should double down on the Aurora Cultural Arts District and construct a space in the surrounding northwest Aurora neighborhood.
Hogan suggested as least four viable locales for a forthcoming Aurora arts facility: the Aurora Municipal Complex, the Anschutz Medical Campus, southeast Aurora and far east near the forthcoming Gaylord Hotel and Conference Center.
Main said that she’s long had her eye on a vacant piece of land across from the Municipal Center, saying that construction in that area would reinforce the city’s quest for a more urban, downtown atmosphere.
“(That plot) is off of a freeway, it would be easy to find, and that would also complement the whole civic center complex with the courts, museum, library and city hall,” she said. “That would make it more of a downtown civic center complex.”
Regardless of where a new facility may end up, both Hogan and Main said that connectivity is key. Hogan said that whether it’s light rail, E-470, I-25 or I-225, a performing arts space would have to be located near an artery of transportation.
“Southeast has E-470; Gaylord has E-470, Tower Road and commuter rail; Fitzsimons has light rail, I-225 and Colfax; and metro center has light rail, Alameda and I-225 — all of them have viability attached,” Hogan said. “We’re not talking about a recreation of what is in Downtown Denver. We’re talking about something that is more the size of the Arvada Center, or the Lone Tree Arts Center, and something that is easily accessible by some form of transportation option.”
Craig Bond, co-founder and artistic director of Vintage Theatre Productions, expressed trepidation about opening a sizable arts outpost far away from the ACAD. Bond’s theater, located at 1468 Dayton St., falls within ACAD boundaries.
“If it’s in a totally different part of the city, I would have to look at what that would mean for the Aurora Cultural Arts District,” he said.
Still, Bond said that the city would benefit from additional space provided by a new arts venue and that he would enjoy a chance to stage larger productions on a bigger, local stage. He said that he frequently has to turn away smaller production companies interested in renting space at the Vintage due to an already packed production calendar.
“We … are turning down rental business in order to maintain our existing programming,” Bond said. “But when you have companies always seeking you out and you’ve already lined up your programming, it gets really tough. We’re regularly turning away business.”
Charlie Packard, executive producer at the Aurora Fox Arts Center, declined to comment for this story.
No matter where or when a new performing arts complex is earnestly pursued in Aurora, Hogan said that conversations on the topic mark a step forward in his and the city’s ongoing mission to become recognized not as a suburb, but as a city wholly separate from Denver.
“We could have things in this city that others already have, and that in and of itself to me, is a step forward,” he said. “It’s yet another example of the fact that we aren’t a small town any more. We’re a big city, and we’re going forward — we’re not going to go backward.”
— Staff Writer Brandon Johansson contributed to this report.