What started seven years ago as work by civic and business interests to update and revitalize the aging Keller auditorium has evolved into what resembles a sort of pre-World War I standoff between civic forces that have no reason to go to war except that neither can figure a way not to. That seems to have happened because the City created a competition and invited alternative proposals for what to do with Keller.
Heavy hitters among Portland civic and cultural elites have lined up behind a renovation of the existing Keller auditorium that goes beyond a seismic retrofit to improve it as a performance venue and civc attraction. Meanwhile, Portland State University has offered up a breathtakingly ambitious and exciting proposal to build a replacement for the Keller on its campus.
The City Council is due to select one proposal this summer for deeper analysis. (Owners of the Lloyd Center mall site have been invited to submit a proposal but have been very quiet so far.) Both sides are now furiously gearing up their PR campaigns and lobbying efforts. Personal relationships are being strained. *
What has already shaped up as a win-lose proposition cries out for my favorite policy approach in these situations: enlarge the problem. Find a way to turn it into a win – win.
My only contribution toward that is to pose a few of the hardest questions each proposal needs to answer, and to state the risk to the city from setting this up as a competition with only one winner. All proposals will need to answer questions about timeline, suitability as performance venues, risks, financing and feasibility.
Importantly, I think we need to look at this through a “whole of the city” lens. That means evaluating the proposals against their consequences for the social, cultural and economic fabric of the city. The goal should be to achieve the best possible performance venue given consideration of all city goals and values.
We pretty much know what we have with the existing Keller. It is dark too many nights of the year, due largely to limited capacity to load and unload the huge stage settings that big shows require. It has space and layout limitations for both performers and audience that make it a less-than-ideal venue.
The proposal for renovation addresses these issues. It is beyond my pay grade to judge whether they are adequate. In that regard, we need to know from local arts organizations. The PSU proposal offers wonderful new facilities and venues. Can those be provided without increasing costs to users and provide the city, not just PSU, with the best overall solution?
The hardest question surrounding Keller renovation, for me, is what more can it do to be alive and lively during the day and more nights of the year. Is the only answer to that improvements in how fast shows can be set up? If it is be part of the needed revitalization of downtown, it needs to be more active.
Which leads us to the Portland State proposal and site. Accepting that it is bold and visionary—the perfect performance hall compared to even an improved Keller—it invites more questions than the relatively known quantity of renovation.
Will it, in fact, help revitalize “downtown” Portland?
What is the benefit to Portland State as an educational institution? What does it do for students, faculty? What does it do to help PSU get out of its financial pinch as enrollment declines?
Is the financing scheme for the complex (Keller-size auditorium, smaller performance hall, hotel and conference center, academic building, and underground parking) realistic? How costly and how risky, and for whom?
Let us assume, the PSU proposal wins the competition and is successfully developed. What is the “whole of the city” effect?
While PSU says the location is “downtown” just blocks away from existing Keller, the reality is that is that it is on the southern fringe. It requires a stretch of imagination to accept that all the activity that the proposal envisions around that southern fringe will not drain activity from further north in the “old” cultural district of what we think of as downtown.
The hope for PSU to be better integrated into downtown is longstanding and worthy. It has launched a promising “placemaking” initiative (separate from the Keller replacement proposal), in part to enliven the border and stimulate activity between “central city” and itself. That is not what the PSU Keller replacement proposal does.
Consider the work of the Governor’s Central City Taskforce, convened to plot a way to revitalize Portland’s distressed downtown. That group divided central city into 11 neighborhoods. Existing Keller is in “Downtown.” The PSU proposal is in a distinct neighborhood, on the southern edge of what is called “University District/SouthDowntown.” The Task Force identified “Downtown” (location of existing Keller) as the area most in need of revitalization, describing its condition as: “Not stabilizing: conditions continue to decline; needs intervention.” Among those interventions it calls for “investments to support business stabilization…Mitigate crisis through incentives and subsidy.”
In contrast, the location for the PSU proposed site is less in need of help: “Beginning to stabilize, likely faster recovery.” For strategy for the University District, the Task Force says: “Support increased activation of districts through targeted support to retail tenants, public realm activation, increasing daytime activity.” Looks like the PSU “placemaking” initiative fits the bill, not the hugely expensive Keller replacement proposal.
In fact, it is hard not to conclude that moving Keller out of the downtown cultural district will do more harm than good for Portland’s distressed downtown. For all the questions that might be raised about renovating Keller, it clearly is part of the social and economic fabric of the “cultural” district, woven over many years with investments in public, private and cultural spaces.
PSU argues that replacing Keller opens up untold opportunities to redevelop the site. Perhaps. But experience with urban renewal schools us to be careful when disrupting deeply established neighborhoods, especially a place with the magnitude of sunk investments that have been made in downtown. What replacement on the existing Keller site would generate anything near the activity and economic benefit as Keller itself?
What about what the PSU proposal does for PSU as an educational institution?
If wildly successful, it might well label PSU as a premier center for arts and culture education. That is, if PSU is also willing to invest heavily in the faculty and programming to attract significant new numbers of arts and culture majors. And even if that is true, is that going to turn around the distressing overall decline in enrollment?
And even if that is true (which I sincerely doubt), consider that the core identity (and for me, value) of PSU as a gritty, accessible place to grab onto better opportunities in life has been displaced by a much loftier mission. This gets into some pretty squishy territory but I am wary about abrupt shifts in institutional mission and identity.
I have yet to hear how this proposal is going to increase enrollment other than rhetorical exhortations about how exciting PSU will become.
Perhaps there is a compelling, hard-headed case for how the PSU proposal truly benefits the city and the school but so far I haven’t seen it.
What I have seen–and heard—is the spectacular success and quality of the PSU vocal program.The opera and choir programs are truly world class, and have the awards and acclaim to prove it. They deserve to be supported and showcased more. For them, success of the PSU proposal would be enormous benefit, giving them needed practice, rehearsal and performance space in an academic building ancillary to a new Keller-sized performance hall. That building would be financed with State bonds which are available separately from the Keller replacement.
My disquiet is that the new buildings of direct benefit to the PSU performing arts programs become almost a pawn in the high-stakes contest over the Keller. As it stands, with the PSU proposal advanced as an all-or-nothing shot, we may lose the opportunity to help the city and PSU if we skate past the opportunity to partner up around, possibly, renovation of the Keller along with new performance, conference and academic facilities at PSU. Not necessarily as one package but as the flowering of a deeper collaboration hinted at by Dr. Cudd’s immediate engagement with Portland’s public, private and civic leaders and communities.
However the respective proponents of renovation and the PSU replacement proposal proceed, I hope they are judged from a “whole of the city” perspective, and really hope they give more than lip service to the possibilities for a win-win. Needless to say, it would help if the City itself decided to pursue this path.
* Disclosure: I have personal friends among the proponents of renovation and I am a devoted alum and supporter of Portland State.