The walls are up and a roof will be landing soon on top of the Maple Leaf Performing Arts Center.
Despite a rainy summer and some damage from a blustery day, construction is still on schedule for the new Brown County music venue to open next summer, Jim Schultz reported at the Oct. 23 Maple Leaf Management Group meeting. He chairs the management group’s construction committee.
The 2,000-seat venue is going up just outside Nashville limits, behind the Salt Creek Plaza shopping area and Brown County Health & Living Community off Hawthorne Drive. Ground was broken in July.
A large wall panel was blown over on Oct. 20, but a replacement panel was set to be delivered and installed toward the end of last month, Schultz said.
[sc:text-divider text-divider-title=”Story continues below gallery” ]Electrical wires have been run under the concrete slab. Crews had finished underground plumbing in the men’s restroom and for the concession stands.
Steel for the building will be arriving by the second week of November, Schultz said.
“It’s really starting to look like a building out there,” he said.
An issue with an “emerging wetland” may result in the reduction of parking spots for the venue, he told the group.
“We do know we’re going to still be way over the number that was required by planning and zoning for this facility. It’s still in process,” he said.
The county has borrowed $12.5 million to build the performing arts center. The loan is to be paid back first by operating revenue, then by the innkeepers tax revenue if more is needed. Brown County visitors pay the innkeepers tax on room and cabin rentals.
Operations
The Maple Leaf Management Group is working to finish a contract with a national booking agency, which is expected to book 26 shows a year for the venue, said co-president Barry Herring. A soon-to-be-hired executive director will fill the rest of the calendar.
Proposals have been sent to Big Woods Brewing Co., Upland Brewing Co. and a few other companies to get bids for concessions and naming rights for the venue’s beer garden, Herring said.
Conversations also have started with ticketing companies.
Earlier in October, Herring said the first major opening act wouldn’t be signed until January. There will be a couple of “soft openings” before the first major act takes the stage next summer to allow the venue to work out any issues, he said.
At the Oct. 23 meeting, the management group voted to approve a budget of $40,750 for its marketing committee to work with Three Sixty Group on establishing a brand and logo and identifying audience markets.
That includes a survey that will be given in Indianapolis, Louisville and Cincinnati to asses the interest in the entertainment venue, naming options, and whether or not people would be likely to stay overnight in Brown County when visiting the Maple Leaf. The price for 600 completed surveys is $16,745.
“Research is extremely important so we don’t spend dollars in areas we don’t need to when you don’t have a lot of money,” said Tonya Figg, a marketing committee member. She is publisher of Travel Indiana magazine.
“This (budget) is half of probably what we need to get it (the marketing) going, and we probably needed to get it going a few months ago, so time is extremely important,” she said.
Herring said money for this marketing work exists in the budget, but he wasn’t sure where to pull money from to pay an executive director.
Jane Ellis, Brown County Convention and Visitors Bureau executive director said there may be “opportunities” in other budgets. She’s supposed to have the CVB’s budget submitted to the Brown County Convention and Visitors Commission this month. The innkeepers tax also funds the CVB’s budget. She proposed pulling a committee together to talk about it.
“We’re in it to win it. There’s no turning back. We have to have solid branding and we have to have an executive director, so if we have to take some hits someplace else, I think that we as a group need to go down that rabbit hole and see what the best results can be,” she said.
Changes?
At the Oct. 23 meeting, Herring presented two possible changes to the administration agreement.
The agreement is among the Maple Leaf Management Group, the Brown County Convention and Visitors Commission, the Maple Leaf Building Corporation and the county. It outlines the management of the center, collection of revenue, operations and maintenance, and how money will be transferred to make payments. It also outlines how excess revenue will be distributed.
“I’ve been engaged in conversations with the local community that I think were really good,” he said.
Under that agreement, net operating revenue from the Maple Leaf will first be used to pay the mortgage on the building. If there is not enough revenue to do that, the county’s 5-percent innkeepers tax will be tapped to make up the difference.
Innkeepers tax is charged on Brown County hotels, motels, inns and tourist rentals.
According to the agreement, excess revenue would then go into a fund, and if there is no default on the mortgage, that money would go first into an capital improvement account until the balance equals $1 million. That money would be used for capital improvements on the center.
If that balance falls below $1 million, the management group would be required to deposit excess revenue into the account until it is brought back up.
Once that balance is up, any other excess money would go to the Brown County Convention and Visitors Commission to reimburse any innkeepers tax money that was spent to make up the difference on mortgage payments. That money could also be used to pay for “unforeseen contingencies” in the operation, or repair or maintenance of the Maple Leaf with written consent from the bank, according to the agreement.
The agreement states that 75 percent of remaining excess funds per calendar year will go to the Brown County Community Foundation — if the improvement account sits at $1 million. If the foundation ever ceases to exist, the money will go to a “similar non-profit corporation with a similar mission in the county,” the agreement states.
The use of that money would then be governed by a separate agreement.
If all of the above compliance measures are met, then any remaining excess money after mortgage payments are made would go to the county commissioners “for any purpose permitted by law.”
In the administration agreement, it states the management group “may” give the money to the community foundation. Herring said on Oct. 23 that he would like to change “may” to “shall” to guarantee the excess money would be given to the community foundation.
He also suggested lowering the $1 million balance requirement in the capital improvement account to $500,000.
“If it went to $500,000, what that would do is it would give back to the community quicker,” he said.
Resident Sherrie Mitchell also asked to be given a copy of the agreement so she could suggest changes. One suggestion she gave was for more government oversight over the capital improvement funds, such as the county council approving any spending.
Any amendments to the agreement would have to be approved by the management group, the Maple Leaf Building Corporation, the CVC and the county commissioners.
Commissioner Diana Biddle, Herring and co-president Kevin Ault volunteered to go over the proposed changes. “It’s not like we have to do it tomorrow, but I think certainly within the next couple of months, if we’re going to clean up some language then we just do it all at once,” Biddle said.
[sc:pullout-title pullout-title=”Lobby beams won’t be built by The Beamery” ][sc:pullout-text-begin]
The Maple Leaf Management Group will not have to spend an additional $200,000 to put wooden beams in the lobby of the Maple Leaf Performing Arts Center. The group has decided go with Laminated Erectors Inc. of Trafalgar instead, which was the second-lowest bidder on the beam project.
In August, the management group voted to create a line of credit to pay for the beams. The first-choice bidder on that project was Helmsburg-based company The Beamery.
The management group had paid The Beamery $18,500 so it could start engineering drawings for the lobby beams, and so construction could stay on schedule.
But management group co-President Barry Herring said delays in getting those drawings caused them to meet with Laminated Erectors Inc. instead. Laminated Erectors Inc. said they could build the beams for $150,000 less.
“We didn’t really have a choice. They could get the beams constructed in time, get it here to keep our construction on schedule and saved us $150,000. There was no decision,” Herring said.
The Beamery’s owner, David Watters, said he learned his company was no longer involved after that decision was made.
On Sept. 14, he said there was a lack of communication between his company and the Maple Leaf Management Group. He said his group was “diligently working on getting all the design engineering down to be able to provide the product that we were supposed to provide in a timely manner.
“I had pretty much put my designer full-time on the project to get it done, and all the sudden was told that we’re not doing it the day after they signed the contract with another supplier,” he said.
Herring said the Maple Leaf Management Group never saw one of the engineered drawings The Beamery had been working on.
Watters said his company had turned down other projects because of the Maple Leaf beam project. “The contract amount was a little over a half-million dollars. That’s a big amount, especially for a company that this past year, we did about $1 million. That’s 50 percent of our revenue,” he said.
Herring said that delays and lack of communication from The Beamery were what pushed the decision. “Do we feel bad? Yes. … When it came down to a $150,000 savings and still getting the project done on time, and giving him 10 days’ notice that we were having those issues and he never responded … that’s what it boils down to.”
Watters said he was unaware his project was over the group’s budget until he read it in the newspaper, and that he would have been willing to do “value engineering “with the group to bring down costs.
“If somebody would have come to me to say, ‘Gee, what can we do to save some money here to make this work?’ I would have said we will do whatever we can. … And that’s the real frustration. Of all the suppliers and subcontractors on the project, if it was over budget, why were we the one chosen to be taken out?” he said.
The Maple Leaf Management Group is not ruling out working with The Beamery in the future on other projects that aren’t currently budgeted, like a timber-framed building in the beer garden for shade and rain protection. “We’ll go to The Beamery first,” said Jim Schultz, who chairs the construction committee for the management group.
The management group is still working on applying for a Destination Development grant through the Indiana Office of Tourism Development to get up to $200,000 to use toward the Maple Leaf project. Bruce Gould, human resources and staffing committee chair for the management group, is working on that application. If the group does get the grant money, and it isn’t needed to go toward the beams, it could go toward other lobby enhancements, like artwork, he said.
[sc:pullout-text-end][sc:pullout-title pullout-title=”Maple Leaf Management Group seeking volunteers to serve on committees” ][sc:pullout-text-begin]
The Maple Leaf Management Group is looking for volunteers to serve as members of different goal groups that were identified during the creation of its strategic plan.
The first goal group is “people and learning organizational excellence,” which deals with staff and volunteer development, leadership development and board development for the performing arts center.
The second goal group is focused on finance and is led by management group co-President Barry Herring.
Goal group three is “customers and program service delivery,” which will handle customer service, program development and internal processes. Nancy Crocker facilitates that group.
Goal group four is “communication and collaboration,” which is marketing and technology. Jim Schultz facilitates group four.
Anyone interested in volunteering with one of these goal groups can go to BrownCounty.com/MapleLeaf and fill out a form expressing interest.
[sc:pullout-text-end]
