“The multiplier effect [of arts spending] is much larger,” she says. “If you think of the trade-off for the arts being going to the Mall of America and spending money as your entertainment—well, they’re just widely different activities. You go to the Mall of America, what you spend is going for low-wage retail employees and for things that are imported from Asia, for the most part. But if you go and spend money on a live performance, most of what you spend is going to get recycled back into the economy by the person that’s putting it in their pocket and going and spending it again, and so on. And I think that that’s not been well understood by people thinking about economics.”
She’s not alone in asserting that the arts can function as an economic engine. A study released in March by the Minnesota Citizens for the Arts and the Forum of Regional Arts Councils of Minnesota, titled The Arts: A Driving Force in the Seven-County Metro Area, says that “nonprofit arts and culture are a $719.5 million industry in the seven-county metro area—one that supports 19,069 full-time jobs and generates $80.1 million in local- and state-government revenue.” In addition, those organizations, “which spend $452.4 million annually, leverage a remarkable $267.1 million in additional spending by arts and culture audiences—spending that pumps vital revenue into local restaurants, hotels, retail stores, parking garages, and other businesses.”
Artspace’s Motes estimates a minimum of 205 performances and programs will occur at the Shubert Center each year. She expects upwards of 300,000 children and adults will attend those activities, while the complex’s event center will draw hundreds of businesspeople every month for meetings and conferences. She also projects that the Shubert’s activities will annually contribute $11 million in indirect revenues to nearby businesses.
If its script isn’t subject to further rewrites, the Shubert’s almost decade-long drama will conclude in 2008, when its marquee is lit, projected images dance across its metal-mesh scrim, and performing-arts patrons dine, drink, and hobnob in the glass-walled lobby and the Hennepin Center’s street-level restaurant before filing into the restored theater for a show.
“There’s really nothing negative about the Shubert project,”
says
Russ Nelson, president and principal of real estate consultancy Nelson
Tietz & Hoye, and immediate past president of the
Minneapolis
Downtown
Council. “It will be positive
due to
increased activity at
that end of downtown,
due to investment,
due to the people who go there
for
a show and also do some
shopping and go
out to dinner. And
when the
Shubert’s done, it
will
increase
interest in
adjoining
properties that
are
now
vacant. We’re pretty
excited
about
it.”
An animated
Shubert could also curb downtown crime. “The more
theater we
have, the better off we are in terms of public
safety,” says
Deputy
Chief Robert Allen of the
Minneapolis
Police Department’s Patrol
Bureau, which
comprises the first
through fifth precincts.
Currently,
on the nights when the
State,
Orpheum, or
Pantages
theaters are lit,
“there’s a
vibe
that’s
hard to
explain. If you walk the
beat, you can
feel
the
difference on show
nights. In
fact, we have fewer
incidents on
the nights of theater performances.”
Performing-arts theaters,
with
their bright
marquees, purposeful crowds, and
attentive
doormen,
“are a
presence
that takes control
of the street,” Allen
explains.
“That’s one
reason why the
Shubert will
help
us on a
key
block that’s
now
just a
vacuum.”
The actual physical distance the Shubert traversed may have only been a block, but for its advocates and patrons, what a long, strange trip it’s been. The journey appears to be coming to an end—and embarking on a new beginning. And not just for the old theater, but perhaps for downtown Minneapolis as well.
