Anchored by art: Bozeman Downtown development driven by cultural center

Downtown Bozeman may soon be redefined.

A developer with a long list of credentials and financial supporters has spent six months quietly negotiating a complicated plan to transform downtown Bozeman with a multi-million-dollar, metropolitan-style development.

By ERIN EVERETT and KAYLEY MENDENHALL, Chronicle Staff Writers

Dick Clotfelter, a West Coast developer who retired to Bozeman six years ago, is back to work and Thursday unveiled plans for a new city center anchored by a new nonprofit performing arts center.

Along with the nearly $50 million, 1,600-seat performing arts center, his plan includes three public parking garages, a new City Hall, a 96-room hotel and a convention center all facing Mendenhall Street between Black and Willson avenues. The performing arts package includes renovations to the Rialto, Ellen and Emerson theaters.

"This is doable and I’d like to make it happen," Clotfelter said.

The development would require some businesses to move and others to remodel.

But so far those affected agree the idea — dubbed The Arts at City Center — is good for downtown Bozeman.

"We’re on board with Dick, as well as the other landowners involved," said Rick Ogle, co-owner of Kenyon Noble Lumber and Hardware, which has agreed to trade its Mendenhall Street property for a new location on the north side of town. "It’s a wonderful thing for downtown Bozeman."

The project still needs donors and various permits, but it is much further along than any of the other attempts to fulfill a community dream for a performing arts center.

For 16 years, other groups have tried and failed to raise the money to build such a center. But with Clotfelter as a catalyst, local businesses, city officials and the arts community have come on board.

"This project needs vision and someone to dig the hole," Matthew Savory, Bozeman Symphony director, said Thursday. "I used to say my hero was Leonard Bernstein. My new hero is Dick Clotfelter."

The Emerson Center for the Arts and Culture’s board voted unanimously this week to join fund-raising efforts in return for help with its own theater remodel, which will then become part of The Arts at City Center.

And the Gallatin Performing Arts Center board, when it heard what Clotfelter had planned, voted to disband.

"We’ve decided we are going to support them," said Murray Steinman, board president. "There’s no room for two performing arts centers."

However, Clotfelter paid homage to the work the Performing Arts Center board had done.

"A lot of people in this community donated money and time that really shaped the concept, shaped the need, shaped the pieces," Clotfelter said. "That’s all carried forward here. There are no losers."

The negotiations began with Clotfelter approaching the owners of the Ellen and Rialto theaters on Main Street. That deal is just awaiting a final appraisal of the properties’ values.

Not long after that, Clotfelter approached the city and he has gotten the support of City Manager Clark Johnson.

"I would encourage the (City) Commission to be a participant in it … because it’s an exciting thing for downtown," Johnson said. "This is a real person, with real resources that I think we can get behind."

A new City Hall, paid for in part by the sale of other properties, would centralize municipal offices; the new parking garages, paid for with a combination of tax-increment financing and revenue bonds, would eliminate a lot of headaches; and a major development would give downtown Bozeman a welcome boost, city officials said.

On the other hand, moving the project through the city’s bureaucratic red tape could be one of the biggest hurdles facing the project, Clotfelter said.

The city would also play a role in acquisition of the National Guard Armory on Mendenhall Street.

The armory is a state-owned building and it must be sold to a public entity, such as the city. So the city would buy it and immediately sell it back to the project.

In addition to the Ellen-Rialto and Kenyon Noble owners, three other business owners are key players in Clotfelter’s scheme.

The Planalp Law offices and Straightaway Motors will be destroyed and rebuilt at new locations, courtesy of Clotfelter.

And the Cat Eye Cafe building will be moved two blocks away.

http://bozemandailychronicle.com/articles/2003/06/13/news/01downtownbzbigs.txt