Call Virginia Fields 4/14/98
Hellskitchen
kitchen@hellskitchen.net
Tue, 14 Apr 1998 10:28:54 -0400
Hell's Kitchen Online 4/14/98
"All the News the Times Won't Print"
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In this issue...
* IMPORTANT: Call Virginia Fields
* Borough Board Votes Thurs. 4/16 at 8 AM
* Reminder: Municipal Art Society Zoning Forum
* Crains: Trouble in the air for theater zoning
* Crains: Boffo Box-office: Broadway makes NY even greener
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IMPORTANT: CALL VIRGINIA FIELDS
Manhattan Borough President Fields is wavering on her campaign
commitment to protect Clinton/Hell's Kitchen from the 8th Ave.
Air Rights Rezoning plan.
Call her office today at 212-669-8300 [or fax her at 212-669-3380]
and let her know she must come out against the entire 8th Avenue
Rezoning proposal, including Air Rights.
Let her know:
a) she can't just "express concern" about the impact on the
neighborhood without being against the primary villian--air rights.
b) this issue is fundamental to the Clinton community. Several years
ago, the city recognized that there would be an impact from the
Times Square redevelopment, and that was on Seventh Avenue. This
proposal is "in" our neighborhood, not a few blocks away
c) any compromise that still allows air rights will come back within
a few years and devastate Clinton. Air Rights is also a precedent
that can also affect other NYC neighborhoods.
d) Broadway is doing great (see Crains article below) and if any help
is warranted, it shouldn't be on the backs of a single community.
Above all, tell her know we expect her to show leadership on the
right side of this issue. She was elected on her campaign statements,
and if she wiggles, waivers or spins this issue to please potential
corporate contributors, she faces the danger of losing her west side
constituency, just like when Ruth Messinger's core support dried up
when she made her deal with Donald Trump's Riverside South. We don't
want Ms. Fields to make the same mistake.
Last summer when she was campaigning for her present job, Virginia
Fields issued a statement regarding the 8th Avenue Rezoning proposal.
(http://hellskitchen.net/csdc/about/about.html#pols) We don't think
it's unreasonable for a politician to be held accountable for their
prior statements.
But Borough President Fields has raised more than a few eyebrows when
she claimed her prior campaign statement was nothing more than an
"expression of concern" (Backstage, 3/20) and that she hadn't made
any decision on any aspects of the proposal (Public Hearing, 3/25).
Although Fields stopped a bit short of stating she was 100% against Air
Rights, she can't claim she against the impact the proposal would bring
without being against that which causes the impact: Air Rights.
This is a political decision for Ms. Fields. And it is her first test of
real leadership. Clinton/Hell's Kitchen will support her is she does
the brave and right thing.
If you picked up one of CSDC's postcards from the 9th Avenue table,
then make sure you mailed it.. But as time is short (and we don't know
when she will be making a statement), then get on the phone and
call her office.
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BOROUGH BOARD VOTE
Yes, that's 8 AM in the morning -- this Thursday the Manhattan
Borough Board will vote on the Eighth Avenue Rezoning proposal,
and of course a good showing from Clinton/Hell's Kitchen goes
a long way. When Crains (see below the 4/13 article) says the
proposal has "stiff opposition," that's your doing when
Clinton showed up at Boards 4 and 5 in March. Let's show them
some stiff morning opposition.
Manhattan Borough Board
Thursday, April 16 at 8 AM
Office of the Borough President
1 Centre Street, 19th floor south wing
Enter the south doors of the building, and be prepared for
the line as they do have a line for the metal detector. This
is a public meeting and your presence is valuable, but the
public will not be able to speak this time.
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REMINDER: MUNICIPAL ART SOCIETY ZONING FORUM
Wednesday, April 15, 6:00 p.m.
The Urban Center
457 Madison Avenue at 51st Street
Topic: Transfer of Development Rights in the Theater
District and Beyond.
Reservations are required
Call 212-935-3960 to see if any are still available
$5 members of sponsoring organizations,
$7 non-members.
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>From Crains, April 13, 1998
Trouble in the air for theater zoning
Council works on changes; critics don't see bonanza
BY LORE CROGHAN
A city proposal to allow the owners of Broadway
playhouses to sell their air rights to real estate
developers throughout the theater district has run into
stiffer opposition than expected.
Faced with trouble, the City Council is struggling to
craft a compromise that would make the plan more
politically palatable. Opponents insist the plan is
ill-advised and would fail to achieve its aim of raising
much-needed funds to bolster Broadway.
"There is a desire on the City Council's part to create
a mechanism to keep the theater vibrant," says
Councilman Walter McCaffrey, D-Queens. "As is always the
case, the devil is in the details."
Mr. McCaffrey chairs the zoning subcommittee whose job
it will be to conduct public hearings later this year on
the Giuliani administration's plan and recommend whether
the council should vote for it.
The measure would allow the owners of 25 theaters to
sell nearly 2.5 million square feet of construction
rights they currently can't exercise because nearly all
their properties are protected landmarks. Owners of
landmarked buildings are usually restricted to
transferring these rights to development projects next
door or directly across the street from their
properties. The mayor's proposal would allow them to
sell to developers throughout their entire neighborhood
and into Hell's Kitchen, between 40th and 57th streets
from the west side of Sixth Avenue to the west side of
Eighth Avenue.
The dual purpose of the plan is to raise money to
support the theater industry and to encourage theater
owners to keep using their properties as playhouses.
Too many Planet Hollywoods?
Advocates argue that unless the measure is passed,
cash-strapped facilities are likely to abandon the
industry "There is a real danger that the smaller
theaters will become Planet Hollywoods and other
entertainment centers," says Ethan Geto, the spokesman
for Broadway Initiative, a consortium of theater
management and labor.
The proposal calls for $10 per square foot of the money
raised by air rights sales to go to the nonprofit
organization, which would use it for grants to transfer
Off-Broadway plays to Broadway, for an audience
development program for young people throughout metro
New York, and for financial support for new playwrights.
Though it is geared to bolster a quintessentially New
York industry, which contributed $2.7 billion to the
city economy during the 1996-97 Broadway season and
provided 25,000 jobs, the proposal has ignited
opposition from civic and preservationist groups. They
either don't want it swelling the size of buildings on
the edge of Hell's Kitchen or don't think it will raise
enough money to provide sufficient support for theaters.
As a serious indication of local disapproval, the
Manhattan Borough Board is expected to recommend against
the plan at a meeting set for Thursday, April 16. The
board includes the 10 City Council members who represent
Manhattan, members of the two community boards in the
area where the air rights would be sold, and Borough
President C. Virginia Fields.
To make matters worse, the controversy has spread
citywide, a problem that politicians did not anticipate.
Civic groups in other boroughs, particularly Brooklyn
and Queens, fear that the measure would cause trouble in
their own backyards by establishing a precedent for
owners of landmarks such as churches to sell their
development rights throughout their neighborhoods.
To try to shore up the proposal, Councilman McCaffrey
and his cohorts are meeting with the plan's supporters
and detractors to discuss possible compromises.
One option is to require developers who buy theaters'
air rights to undergo public review of the impact that
larger projects would have on the surrounding community.
The current plan would allow air rights purchasers to
increase the size of their buildings by 20% with no
review.
Another idea is to exclude the west side of Eighth
Avenue from the area where air rights could be used. A
third is to define playhouses in boroughs outside
Manhattan as off-off-Broadway theaters, making them
eligible for Broadway Initiative aid.
A fourth possibility is to totally scrap the air rights
plan and craft another strategy to support the theaters.
So far, developers, who would be major beneficiaries of
the proposal, are only watching the flay from the
sidelines.
"It's not that important to me, says Jeffrey Katz,
president of Sherwood Equities Inc., which owns a
theater district development site. "If asked, I support
it."
The nonchalance comes because development rights are
already available for some projects on the drawing
boards.
Times Square developer Douglas Durst says the fate of
the proposal won't make any difference in the size of
the tower he plans to start building three years from
now on Sixth Avenue between 42nd and 43rd streets. If he
decides to add to the 1.2 million square feet he's
slated for, he can buy rights from the Henry Miller
Theater, which is next to his property.
Plan may fall short
The Rockefeller Group, which plans a 1
million-square-foot office building at its Rock West
site, on Seventh Avenue between 49th and 50th streets,
could buy up to 600,000 square feet of air rights from
neighboring Rockefeller Center if it wanted to construct
a bigger tower.
This underscores a problem foreseen by critics of the
administration's proposal --- that there will be scant
demand for theater owners' air rights even when the real
estate market is hot. They predict that when a buyer
does crop up, numerous sellers will compete for the deal
and drive down the price of the rights. The sales could
wind up generating far less money than the $100 million
that city planners project.
This fear has prompted the opposition of the Municipal
Art Society, which hopes the City Council can craft a
more "straightforward" program to support Broadway.
"If this were the oil industry in Dallas or the auto
industry in Detroit, it would get city attention," says
Brendan Sexton, the group's president. "This is our
hometown industry -- it shouldn't have to go to such
extremes to get some help."
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>From Crains, April 6, 1998
Boffo Box-office: Broadway makes NY even greener
Economic impact soars as theaters invest, promote find new patrons
by Emily Denitto
Last year was Broadway's most successful season ever, as record
attendance and ticket sales demonstrated the industry's growing economic
power.
A new in-depth study of the 1996-97 season shows just how far that power
goes. The study, to be released this week by The League of American
Theatres and Producers Inc., estimates Broadway's total economic impact
on the city at $2.7 billion, a 37% increase in real dollars over the
past five years.
The study identifies several trends that bode well for Broadway and the
city. The theater remains a major draw for tourists, helping to lift
ancillary spending at venues ranging from hotels to restaurants. New
marketing efforts for Broadway as a brand appear to be paying off,
especially in attracting younger audiences And theater owners are once
again spending on capital improvements.
The study itself will be used to help chart further initiatives. In the
coming weeks, the League will announce several new promotional plans,
including its first national effort in supermarkets.
"There's been real progress in the last five years," says Jed
Bernstein, executive director of the League.
The total economic impact includes the direct costs of mounting and
running shows, tickets and more. But it also factors in the related
effects of that spending, as the dollars spent in a lumberyard, for
example, ate then put back into the local economy.
Broadway's tourist draw is the most significant contributor to its
overall impact.
More than 10.5 million people attended shows last season -- up 44% from
199l-92 -- and spent $499 million on tickets. Nearly half of those
theatergoers came from outside the metropolitan area, 1.7 million of
them visiting specifically to go to Broadway. Another 3.2 million
theatergoers came from the suburbs, often adding a meal and parking to
their trip.
All combined, visitors' direct costs were $971 million, up from $706
million five years earlier. Their total economic impact was $1.7
billion, in 1991-92, it was $1.2 billion. "Broadway is a crucial draw for
the city's tourists," says Karen Hauser, the League's manager
of research.
Theater owners are beginning to invest in their properties again.
Capital spending five years ago was so low it wasn't even part of a 1991-92
study done by the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey.
But last season, theater goers spent $72.2 million on renovations as
well as the construction of two new houses that brought Broadway's
theater count to 37. The total economic impact of capital investment
was $105.7 million.
Playing to a younger crowd
"This is a big change, and it's one that will have a lasting impact on
the economy," says Catherine Lanier, director of research for the
Alliance for the Arts, a nonprofit research group that co-sponsored the
study. "Thanks to the new theaters, there's been a major increase in
the seating capacity for Broadway overall."
More and more, those seats are being filled by younger theatergoers.
The number of ticket holders under the age of 18 more than doubled to
1.1 million last year, from 500,000 for the 1990-91 season.
Broadway's improving health results from a number of trends, from an
ebullient economy to shifting demographics, says Mr. Bernstein.
Babyboomers have 7-, 8-, 12-year-old kids who are now at a prime age
to introduce to Broadway," he notes.
It also reflects the theaters' improved marketing efforts. Shows are
courting those younger theatergoers, and Broadway is being touted as a
brand to all ages as never before.
Late last year, the League launched The Broadway Line, the industry's
first toll-free information service. Partnerships with other brands,
most notably Broadway's first official corporate sponsor, Continental
Airlines, are further promoting the Great White Way.
This week, the League will announce a new three-year partnership with
Cadbury Schweppes. A national retail promotion planned for the fall
will bring the Broadway name into supermarkets across the country.
"Talk about mainstream marketing," says Mr. Bernstein, a former
advertising executive. "This is Procter & Gamble 101."
But costs rising quickly
The economic impact study reflects some of Broadway's biggest
challenges as well as its successes. The costs of bringing last seasons
shows to the stage amounted to $74.5 million, compared with $66.1
million five years earlier. Operating costs once the shows opened rose
to $410.3 million from $288.4 million.
"This reaffirms what we've known for a while now -- that costs have been
rising way ahead of ticket prices," says Mr. Bernstein.
Those costs are less painful when productions are successful, of
course. The number of new shows last year was similar to the 1991-92
season: 37 and 39, respectively. But because playing weeks increased
nearly 50%, to 1,347 from 905, the average weekly operating expense
remained virtually the same, at $318,000. "Shows are always most
expensive in the beginning, and economies of scale are created as the
playing weeks go up," says Mr. Bernstein.
Creating a hit on Broadway will always remain a tough goal. But the
industry's reviews, and thus its economic impact, are clearly on the
rise.
"Broadway has returned to its rightful place on the entertainment
menu, a position it had in the Forties, Fifties and beginning of the
Sixties but then lost for a while," says Mr. Bernstein. "Until now."
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