Yes, another ‘rosy’ story about our shining purple giant downtown. Things are not so bad afterall;
Looking to build on the progress of his predecessors Larry Toll and Scott Petersen, who served as co-presidents during the Pavilion’s first profitably successful years, Smith is going all in on giving the 350,000-square-foot facility a makeover, authorizing a three-quarter-million investment in the three-level Kirby Science Discovery Center, new paint throughout the building and nearly a half-million worth of new flooring on the way. More changes are planned for the year with a restructure of the attraction’s front lobby and more big dollar investments in the upper floors.
Sounds great doesn’t it? We’ll get back to above paragraph;
While final numbers aren’t in yet, Smith said 2016 will mark another year of gains for the Pavilion and the projection for 2017 is another year in the black. All the while, the amount of public dollars the facility is relying on continues to decrease.
Historically, the annual contribution from the city’s entertainment tax has made up about 20 percent or more of the Pavilion’s operating budget – which was around $7.5 million last year. In 2016, 22 percent of its budget was covered with taxpayer dollars, but that’s expected to dip to 17 percent in 2017, Smith said.
“It will always be important for the city to play a role in supporting it, but I also think a lot of people would like to see the private portion of the pie get larger every year,†he said. “So were going to take a pretty significant jump toward achieving that.
Bravo to Smith for getting subscriber and member numbers up, bravo also to him for trying to reduce the (operational) subsidy. But don’t be fooled by the numbers. Like the Events Center, while the Pavilion may be tackling it’s operational expenses, the maintenance and mortgage doesn’t come cheap, and doesn’t come from operational.
Back to to the first paragraph of the story;
authorizing a three-quarter-million investment in the three-level Kirby Science Discovery Center, new paint throughout the building and nearly a half-million worth of new flooring on the way. More changes are planned for the year with a restructure of the attraction’s front lobby and more big dollar investments in the upper floors.
What is not evident in this story is that these ‘investments’ don’t come from the Pavilion’s operational budget, they don’t even come from private investors. Since the city owns the Pavilion (building) we are responsible for all new construction and maintenance. The WP Management doesn’t spend one single penny on these things. The money comes from our 2nd penny CIP, the same place where are road money comes from. So every time the Pavilion spends $500K on carpeting, that is $500K less spent on filling potholes. It’s easy to talk about the operational success of a facility when you have a separate entity subsidizing your structure. It would be like having a retail business in a building that you don’t have to pay a lease on.
It seems Smith learned well from his old boss at city hall. Smoke and Mirrors.