Durham's arts center earns $400K for city in first eight months

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Quadrupled expectations

Aging rockers and Broadway touring companies have been very good to the Bull City.

The Durham Performing Arts Center quadrupled the city's revenue expectations in its first eight months or so of operation, according to a draft financial audit released Thursday.

The DPAC, which opened last November, generated a net income of a little more than $1.1million for the fiscal year that ended June 30.

Carolina Theater turns profit

For the first time in a decade, the Carolina Theatre is in the black.

The Carolina Theatre of Durham, the nonprofit organization that runs the downtown performance venue and art-movie house, is earning more than it spends and has finally paid off years of debt.

The organization ended its first quarter with $16,621 in accumulated earnings. The relatively modest number represents a huge step for an organization that was once in such tenuous financial shape that its bank turned away its business. In 2000, it had a budget deficit of $500,000.

Arts plan gathers impetus

Duke University has moved a downtown performing arts center closer to reality by agreeing to kick in more than $3 million for the project.

"We're closer than we've ever been in trying to make this thing happen," Mayor Bill Bell said at a meeting Tuesday.

Duke will give $3 million toward the $35.5 million project, plus another contribution that is still to be determined, said John Burness, the university's senior vice president for public affairs and government relations. Previously, the university pledged between $1 million and $2 million to the project.

Shirts on mayors' backs riding on game result

The mayors of Chapel Hill and Durham are betting big on tonight's game between UNC and Duke.

"If Duke loses, Chapel Hill Mayor Kevin Foy will receive tickets to a show at the Durham Performing Arts Center, the newly opened largest performing arts theater in the Carolinas," according to a release from the mayor's offices. "If UNC loses, Durham Mayor Bill Bell is invited to a night on Franklin Street and Asian cuisine at the Lantern Restaurant, which The News & Observer ranked as the 2008 No. 1 restaurant in the Triangle."

But wait for this next part.

Theater locale change sought in Durham

Members of the local arts community are now asking the city to scrap six years of design work to build a performing arts center near the American Tobacco redevelopment project and look at locating the theater in the heart of downtown.

The request came as a surprise to temple-rubbing project managers at a meeting attended by about 25 people Monday. Chapel Hill architect Phil Szostak said it was the first time in his 20 years of working on public projects that community members had questioned the location of a project.

"That's generally the given," he said.