Hilton Head slashes request for arts campus

The Town of Hilton Head Island will drastically reduce its $30 million request to the Beaufort County Sales Tax Commission for a new arts and entertainment campus.

Town Council voted Tuesday to instead ask for $9.5 million for the campus from the panel, which is vetting potential projects that may be funded by a one-percent sales-tax increase.

In early March town officials pitched to the commission an ambitious $30 million plan to partially fund the construction of the estimated $65 million campus. But the commission said it needed to see a more substantial plan.

“The reason for the reduction is, frankly, because I didn’t believe the capital sales tax commission was going to approve this request at the $30 million figure,” said Hilton Head Mayor David Bennett Tuesday.

The decrease to the arts-campus request — which nixes construction costs to focus on pre-development expenses like surveys and mockups — allows three new projects to be added to the council’s overall $30 million funding request, according to town manager Steve Riley.

One of those is a $10 million project to expand the Island Recreation Center. The other two additions are Safe Routes to Schools projects that will create public pathways along Main Street and William Hilton Parkway.

But one council member said he is dissatisfied with the request, saying it’s premature to ask for any dollars for the arts campus at this time.

“I’m still wondering why we’re moving forward with asking for $9.5 million (for the arts campus) when we’ve just now completed setting up a committee that’s going to go through the exercise of determining if we even want, or if it makes sense, to do this,” Ward 3 councilman Lee Edwards said. “And I just think it’s premature to go ahead and ask for money for that.”

Edwards called the council’s prior decision to ask the tax commission for $30 million for the arts campus “a mistake” and said he’d changed his mind. He cast the lone dissenting vote to amend ithe funding request to the tax commission.

Tuesday, the council also voted to undertake a facilities assessment of the Arts Center of Coastal Carolina.

The center recently asked Hilton Head for $575,000 to replace its failing performance lighting system. Riley said an assessment would include the lighting system — and said it might even take into account a used lighting option — but would focus on the overall facility.

“When you look back over the years, the arts center has been the beneficiary of a lot of funds, a lot of public monies,” Bennett said. “And I just want to make sure any additional dollars that we’re allocating is being done in a prudent fashion. I don’t want to be throwing good money after bad.”

Bennett said he didn’t want to look at the center “piecemeal” — a problem one year followed by a different issue the following year.

He said he wanted to “understand what we’re dealing with,” referring to the center’s overall condition.

This story was originally published April 19, 2016 at 10:15 PM with the headline "Hilton Head slashes request for arts campus."