Group spends $100,000, works a decade to bring arts venue to Hilton Head

The group’s original members cannot recall exactly how or when they first got together more than a decade ago.

They just remember having a sense of frustration over Hilton Head Island’s lack of venue space for its arts organizations.

A request made by Hilton Head’s then-Mayor Tom Peeples to study the issue spurred them to action, said Walter Graver, former president of the Hilton Head Symphony Orchestra.

Today, the group of about 15 local arts enthusiasts is still at it, advocating for an arts campus for the island. They formed a nonprofit, Community Vision of Hilton Head Inc. in 2006 and have since put more than $100,000 of their own money toward studying the possibility of an arts campus.

They’re closer than ever to realizing their dream. A town committee is vetting their proposal. And a sales-tax increase, which voters may consider in November, could yield as much as $9.5 million toward the campus.

Graver said he and the other members have nothing personally to gain. Rather, they have deep roots in the island’s art scene and want to see it flourish.

“I could see the orchestra and other arts groups growing,” Graver said. “And I said to myself, ‘It’s time for someone to start looking ahead and plan for a time when we really will need it.’ ”

Graver said another motivating factor for him was his involvement with the planning of the Arts Center of Coastal Carolina, then known as the Self Family Arts Center. Graver was active on both the planning committee and the center’s board.

“I could see even then that we made the building too small for what we ultimately built and began to draw,” he said.

He now believes the island needs a campus of the proper “scale and size” that would be financially successful.

The CVHH also believes the campus would serve as a mighty economic engine for the town and region.

Their proof: several studies for which the group paid, including a 2015 economic impact study of seven performing arts centers around the county. The facilities, located places like Aspen, Colo., to Sarasota, Fla., generated an average economic impact of $65 million per year for their local communities, according to the study.

“It’s an issue of competitiveness,” said Dan Castro, vice president of CVHH, noting that tourism is an increasingly competitive field.

Their studies suggest that a Hilton Head arts campus would have a similar impact on Hilton Head and Beaufort County in the range of $78 to $111 million per year, a conservative estimate they say, for the first five years of operation. That’s a year-round impact, according to the study, comparable to the RBC Heritage Presented by Boeing.

Other tourism spots in South Carolina are going down a similar path, Castro said.

Myrtle Beach has taken steps to build its own voter-approved arts center, which would include a performing arts center and amphitheater seating upwards of 16,000 guests. The project was held up last April due to parking issues but was expected to move forward again this month, according to the (Myrtle Beach) Sun News.

“We now know people want more than just beach and golf,” Castro said. “So the arts is what more areas are turning to, which is why I say it’s a competitive issue. Hilton Head needs to remain competitive.”

This story was originally published April 30, 2016 at 9:00 AM with the headline "Group spends $100,000, works a decade to bring arts venue to Hilton Head."