Arts Center of Coastal Carolina seeks $575K for new stage lights

The Arts Center of Coastal Carolina is asking the Town of Hilton Head Island for about $575,000 to replace their failing performance light system, warning that the theater would take a major financial hit if the stage goes dark.

But town officials said this week they’re hesitant to hand over any cash to fix the aging facility, in part because the future of the center is the subject of ongoing debate.

In 2013, the arts center, which has operated in the red for years, raised $5 million to pay down its debt and make building improvements. The center has sought an additional $1 million in donations and bequests since then but has raised only $270,000, according to its marketing vice president Andrea Gannon. The center’s leaders also suggested the town buy the facility and pay for its annual maintenance costs and much-needed repairs, such as a $2.5 million roof and exterior replacement.

While the town is considering such a purchase, it wants to build a new arts and entertainment center on the island and said this month it is seeking $30 million of the total cost from the Beaufort County Capital Sales Tax Commission, a panel developing a potential 1 percent sales tax referendum for the November ballot.

Regardless of a solution to the arts center’s long-term solvency, it will need new performance lights, said chief operating officer Jeffrey Reeves.

“We have no ability to tell when (the lights) will fail. We just know we experience ongoing problems,” he said Thursday. “Our staff has done very well with maintaining and patching it to keep it going, but it’s just going to have to be fixed.”

Reeves added that years of elaborate patches and repairs could eventually cost as much as a replacement. And a major system failure could potentially force the center to incur additional debt to survive, though he is not concerned that the center would close its doors completely.

Several town council members were sympathetic to the arts center’s needs Tuesday night. Both Bill Harkins and Lee Edwards said they were worried about the impact of a lighting system failure.

“It’s not a matter of, ‘Well, we’d really like to have a new light system,’ ” Edwards said. “I believe them. I believe they really need this. ... I think we’re crazy just to let this ship sink.”

Other council members were not convinced.

“I’m not suggesting we let it sink at all,” council member Kim Likins responded to Edwards. “I’m just suggesting before we commit to spend half a million dollars, we just get some type of independent professional evaluation that that’s what it is and needs to be done.”

Upgrading the 20-year-old performance lights — which includes some parts that are even older — with modern LED technology would cost about $575,000, according to report completed in December by Chapel Hill, N.C.-based Theatre Consultants Collaborative Inc., which toured and reviewed the facility in August.

“It’s not like wiring a house and plugging in a lamp,” Reeves said. “There’s a lot that goes into these performance lighting systems.”

Down the road, the theater would also need to replace the lighting systems in the lobby, house and Black Box Studio, at an estimated cost of $578,000, according to the consultants’ report.

Mayor David Bennett ultimately asked town manager Steve Riley to determine what funding source might be available to help the center and to work with the company’s staff to authenticate their need.

Reached Thursday, assistant town manager Greg DeLoach said staff members are still working on the requests and hope to present options to council at the next regularly scheduled meeting on April 19.

This story was originally published April 7, 2016 at 5:25 PM with the headline "Arts Center of Coastal Carolina seeks $575K for new stage lights."