It’s been almost six years since Dorothy McClung Lewis stood on the recently-completed stage at the Terry Brown Amphitheater and belted out a few lines of a song. At the time, she joked about being the first performer at the theater.
What she could not have known then is that she was not only the first, but the only performer to take the stage.
At the recently-completed legislative session, the state appropriated an additional $1 million for the project, the first funding the project has received since a $500,000 appropriation in 2019. That funding, while welcomed, won’t be enough to finish the facility and host paid events.
It’s sort of a Catch 22 conundrum, Rep. Dana McLean (R, Columbus) said during a Columbus city council work session Thursday. Legislators are wary of spending money on a project that doesn’t produce revenue. But the amphitheater can’t produce revenue until it has the funding to hold ticketed events.
In the meantime, the facility sits fallow.
A project that once had the full-voiced support of the Columbus Lowndes Convention and Visitors Bureau (it was a CVB tour that McClung Lewis took the stage), other city organizations and McLean’s predecessor in the House, Jeff Smith (chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee) seems to have lost most of its allies.
That’s what happens when a facility sits unfinished and unused for almost six years.
If the city is going to recapture the moment – and the financial support it needs to finish the venue – something needs to stir interest in the facility and show the legislature that the city is making a good-faith effort to use what it has.
The best idea: Free shows, an idea that has been kicked around since the completion of Phase 1 of the project in 2018, which included the stage, electrical and sound system and grass-seating to accommodate 1,800.
Long before the amphitheater was even a thought, a grassy area at the Riverwalk – just across the water from the amphitheater – has been used for innumerable concerts and events, including the wildly popular Sounds of Summer concert series. Even in its current state, the amphitheater has all of the elements and features of the Riverwalk venue. There is nothing we see that would prevent portable restrooms, vendors and food trucks from setting up at the amphitheater.
Holding free concerts at the amphitheater would keep the facility in the public eye and build local support for the project. Successful concerts would be something McLean and other local legislators could offer the legislature as proof that the city is serious about keeping the project alive.
Those free concerts would also give the city some pretty good feedback about access, parking, traffic flow and patrons’ suggestions that would be useful as the project moves forward.
Perhaps most important of all, it would show the city is not content to let the facility sit idle. From the legislature’s point of view, you can understand that they want to see something for the $3.7 million the state has already spent on the project.
Simply put: It’s Showtime!
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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