• City Ownership of the complex
• Opening Fall of 2009
• Shift $2M from Centerstage to Landmark

Here’s a Times-Dispatch article.

The last financial report published on the VAPAF.com website is from Feb. 2006. The final report from the “committee for the arts” is due to be submitted to Mayor L. Douglas Wilder by Dec. 31.

TimesDispatch.com | Nashville’s plan for symphony hit right notes

The Times-Dispatch has an article.

UPDATE 5/4/06:

The committee has published it’s interim report. The bottom line is: $45M to refurbish the Carpenter Center, and if they can get an extra $20M, it would be used for a playhouse on the SE corner next to the Carpenter Center. According to the report, the $45M includes an orchestral shell, but not storage space.

The Times-Dispatch has a short article.

They have a social event scheduled for Wednesday, April 5th, 6:30pm – 9:30pm at Cabo’s Bistro.

Their plan is to make it a 1500 “seat” Concert Hall similar to the NorVA in Norfolk. It could open as early as 2007.

Here’s a TD article and a Richmond.com article.

Here’s the full text of the TD article:

National to be concert hall
New owners will seek performers who normally skip city
BY WILL JONES
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER
Tuesday, January 10, 2006

TIMES-DISPATCH
TIMES-DISPATCH

SLIDESHOW: National Theatre

RELATED: Richmond’s Downtown Projects

The National Theatre is being sold to a group that plans to restore it as a concert hall for popular musical acts, including many that currently bypass Richmond.

The Historic Richmond Foundation announced yesterday an agreement to sell the historic theater at 704 E. Broad St. to RIC Capital Ventures.

“Aggressively, we’d like to open before the end of 2006,” said Brad Wells, a partner with the company. “We’ve got a great theater shell. There’s a lot we’re going to preserve.”

The sales price is nearly $1.6 million, Wells said.

RIC Capital Ventures is affiliated with James River Entertainment, which produces the Innsbrook After Hours concert series and the Loudoun Summer Music Fest and other concerts. Wells said James River Entertainment plans to book events at the National in consultation with Rising Tide Productions, which owns and operates the NorVa, a restored 1,500-capacity theater in Norfolk.

While details about the planned restoration are incomplete, the National is expected to accommodate 1,500 patrons with no fixed seating, much like NorVa, Wells said.

Historic Richmond Foundation, which has owned the National since 1989, has been eager to see it restored and reopened. The sale to RIC Capital will accomplish both goals, said John Owen Gwathmey, the foundation’s president.

“They agreed to all of the restricted covenants that we put into place,” he said. “They also agreed to an accelerated timetable. . . . Of all the people we talked to, they were the only ones who agreed to that.”

RIC Capital has four months to complete the sale, although an extension could be granted, Gwathmey said.

The National is one of two planned venues that could attract concerts that have been bypassing Richmond between stops at such venues as the NorVa and the 9:30 Club in Washington.

Toad’s Place Richmond, a venue for about 1,300 people, is planned in the Lady Byrd Hat building on Virginia Street by the Canal Walk. Jeff Sadler, the venue’s general manager, said in November an opening in late spring was expected. He could not be reached yesterday.

“We’re only going to complement the landscape of entertainment in Richmond,” Wells said.

The National had been identified by the Virginia Performing Arts Foundation as a future part of an arts center in downtown. However, the arts foundation has been struggling to raise money for venues in the block that includes the Carpenter Center. Three business leaders with ties to the arts foundation recently considered offering to buy the National and holding onto it until the arts foundation was ready to start renovations.

If the sale of the National is finalized, the arts foundation will work with Mayor L. Douglas Wilder’s arts committee to find another 350- to 450-seat venue, said Bob Mooney, acting executive director of the arts foundation.

Gwathmey said RIC Capital’s plan is not inconsistent with the arts-center plan. “Our hope is . . . it’s going to draw a lot of people into that area,” he said.

RIC Capital had bought the former Mulligan’s sports bar on West Broad Street as a prospective venue for concerts, but that plan met resistance from Henrico County officials. The Mulligan’s building was sold last month, Wells said.

The National, which features an Italian Renaissance facade, opened in 1923 for theatrical performances but was later used as a movie house and renamed The Towne. It closed in 1983 and was slated for demolition when the Historic Richmond Foundation bought it in 1989.

Jim Whiting, a foundation trustee, has spent 15 years repainting the National’s interior plaster work and serving as its caretaker.

“I think it’s a real plus for our city,” he said of the sale. He said he’s visited the NorVa and raved about how that theater has been restored and maintained.

“This is a top-notch facility. They’re as excited about restoring this theater as we are in them doing it.”

The Times-Dispatch has this story.