Dixon council pushes forward to fulfill Historic Theater’s $350,000 budget ask

DIXON – As it moves toward creating its fiscal 2025 budget, the Dixon City Council has heard from local nonprofits as they seek city dollars for their organizations, with the council working through requests one by one as it settles on how much each organization will receive.

It was the $350,000 request from The Dixon: Historic Theater’s Board of Directors that led to the most discussion at the council’s most recent budget work session Wednesday, March 6.

Three of five council members – Mary Oros, Dennis Considine and Mike Venier, who was appointed by the city to serve on the historic theater’s board of directors and is now the theater board’s president – said they would support the full $350,000 request when the council formally votes on accepting the completed budget document. Dixon Mayor Glen Hughes said he could support giving the theater $250,000, while council member Chris Bishop said he does not want to continue subsidizing a theater that might not be able to sustain itself in the future.

ExpandAutoplay

Image 1 of 9

The Dixon technical director Scott Shipp (left) gestures toward areas on the building that need to be tuckpointed Wednesday, March 6, 2024. The theater will be closed part of this year to tackle roof and brick repairs. (Alex T. Paschal)

Over the past several weeks, leaders of local nonprofits have attended City Council budget work sessions to make their pitch for dollars. The Dixon: Historic Theatre Board made its case on Monday, March 4, when its new artistic producer, Darren Mangler, spoke of the theater as a jewel in the Midwest that could rival any theater, from the Clinton Area Showboat Theatre in Clinton, Iowa, to Circa ‘21 in Rock Island and Timber Lake Playhouse in Mount Carroll.

“It is a Broadway theater in the heart of your town,” Mangler said, later adding, “I am very excited about what the future of The Dixon can be.”

The Dixon and its historic theater is owned and operated by Historic Dixon Theatre Group. The board is appointed by Dixon’s mayor and City Council, but operates as an independent body. That group took over ownership and operation of the Dixon Historic Theatre in 2019, but the theater’s history dates to 1920, when Leonard G. Rorer, manager of Dixon’s Family Theatre, announced he had purchased the site of The Dixon Opera House. He had purchased it “for the purpose of erecting the finest show house to be found between Chicago and Des Moines and from Rockford to LaSalle,” according to The Dixon: Historic Theatre’s website.

According to the website, the opera house opened in 1876 and operated until it was destroyed by fire in early 1920. On March 15, 1922, the Dixon Evening Telegraph announced the opening of The Dixon Theatre. The Dixon cost $200,000 to build and was designed in an Italian Renaissance style by local architect William J. McAlpine, who had been responsible for the Lee County Courthouse, the Old Post Office and Dixon National Bank, among other buildings. Its crowning glory was a large dome in the center of the ceiling with a sky treatment. There also is a large stage, orchestra pit and a 1924 organ.

The Rorer family owned and operated the theater for nearly 30 years. Early showbills featured several vaudeville acts, a seven-piece orchestra and frequently a motion picture. An organ accompanied the early silent films, and talking pictures arrived in 1929. Among the most famous events was the premier showing of the Ronald Reagan film “International Squadron,” according to the website.

The Dixon continued to serve as a movie house until 1984, when the final movie was shown. In October 1985, Dixon Theatre Renovation signed a lease-purchase agreement and The Dixon once again became a showcase for the performing arts. DTRI and the Lee County Civic Center Authority oversaw the building through nearly 35 years of use as a performing arts center.

The goal for the last several years has been to make the theater a cultural anchor for the region and tourist attraction for the city, bringing in additional sales tax revenue and customers for restaurants and other businesses. Movies have been shown at the theater over the past several months, and shows, such as Doug Allen Nash’s Johnny Cash and Neil Diamond tribute over the weekend, also draw in crowds.

Funding sources

In August 2022, the century-old theater won a $1.2 million federal Economic Development Administration grant for structural improvements to the facility. The grant is funded by the American Rescue Plan Act and will cover interior and exterior tuckpointing, new flooring, addressing water leaks in different areas, drainage on the side of the building with Peace Park, making restrooms more accessible, and replacing areas of chipped ceiling.

The grant required $300,000 in matching funds. The City Council and Lee County Board each agreed to give the theater $100,000. The remaining $100,000 is coming from the theater’s community fundraising campaign.

The grant only can be used for infrastructure work and cannot be put toward operational costs.

The city also has helped the theater along financially in the past few years. In April 2023, it was reported that the city had given the theater about $300,000 for events in the previous couple of years, and the expense would be $200,000 in 2024 because of a donation and the $100,000 toward the theater’s $1.5 million project to make structural repairs.

But as it prepares to use the grant and donations, the challenge now faced by the theater is keeping the bills paid when it shuts down for renovations that will keep the theater dark from early July to around Christmas.

With no show revenue to pay the utilities or payroll for three full-time employees – and with just a little under $100,000 in liquid cash as of the end of February, according to theater treasurer Will Ellis – the board said it is seeking funding to cover monthly costs and wages as well as put down deposits on contracts for the 2025 show schedule. It equates to 136 days of cash now on hand, about 4 1/2 months of operating ability, Ellis said.

Ellis said the total $350,000 request includes the $100,000 the theater normally receives from the city each year and would be used for eventing. The extra $250,000 would be used to offset financial challenges, which include the theater being closed and paying for 2025 show contract deposits.

Ellis said that while the theater is operating at a loss, there is a positive overall economic impact the theater’s presence has on the community as a whole that cannot be overlooked.

In 2022, 20,800 people visited the theater; 2023 saw 15,700 visitors, with half of the theater’s visitors from outside of Dixon, Ellis said. For every $1 a visitor spends in the theater, they spend $1.4 at other community businesses. Under that line of thinking, 2023′s visitor numbers created an economic impact of $770,000 in the community, Ellis said, adding that the theater draws the visitors to town.

“People come to town to come to the shows that we are producing and the shows we are putting on,” Ellis said. “They are coming to spend money within our community at the shops, the restaurants and the establishments.”

“We come before you today, as well as the citizens of the community, to ask for an investment in us, but it’s not only us, but all the other restaurants and all the other establishments in this community that we help facilitate through this subsidy that we provide through the arts and the entertainment,” he said.

When discussing the request during Wednesday’s budget workshop, Bishop said he is concerned that the theater continues to need city money to subsidize its operations.

“So when I think about this time and time again what I come back to ... it’s not the dollar amount right now, but basically what we’re committing to is subsidizing this theater until who knows when into the future and I think we’re just going to keep pumping money into the building and it’s old,” he said, describing the building as inefficient.

“I just don’t think it’s fiscally responsible,” he said.

Considine, calling it a quality-of-life issue, said he is 100% behind granting the $350,000 request, with Oros and Venier agreeing.

Oros said while such a large request year after year after year is not sustainable, the city is in the best place for this investment based on the grant award and the board that is in place.

“We have the very best shot at getting this theater off the ground,” Oros said.

Hughes said that as he worked the math, he could only come up with the need for $250,000, which is the level at which he would approve funding the request.

The City Council did not formally approve the request, but will put the $350,000 amount in the budget as it works toward creating the budget document, which must go before the council for final approval.