More than $1.3M in Ohio’s capital budget will boost local arts venues

YOUNGSTOWN — When former state Rep. Bob Hagan was in his first term in 1987, the roof of the Stambaugh Auditorium was leaking. Buckets were placed to catch the droplets.

Without repairs, the Stambaugh Auditorium risked structural damage.

"Luckily," state investment dollars were available then as they are now 34 years later, said his wife, current State Rep. Michele Lepore-Hagan of Youngstown, D-58th.

That's the purpose of the state capital budget: to fund ground-level, brick-and-mortar projects that otherwise would never materialize. More than $1.3 million in Ohio capital budget funding for the current cycle will help local arts venues preserve, renovate and expand despite the harsh economic environment created by the COVID-19 pandemic, officials announced during a Monday morning event at Stambaugh.

Operators of Youngstown's Stambaugh Auditorium are set to get $350,000 to raze, rebuild and restore the building's exterior staircase, promenade and retaining walls and piers, while also adding new handicapped-accessible ramp. The new construction would match the building's historical architecture design, said Matt Pagac, general manager.

"Except it will be clean and it won't be crumbling and it will be structurally sound for, hopefully, another 100 years," Pagac said. "I keep telling the architects; the engineers that we haven't had to do anything out there for almost 100 years and it needs to last another 100 years.

"They've laughed at me every time, and I'm like, 'No, I'm serious'."

The Butler Institute of American Art in Youngstown is set to receive $275,000 to upgrade the museum's environmental controls, which will preserve the museum's "priceless" collection of artworks. The new "state-of-the-art" system allows for "precise" control over the indoor temperature and should keep maintenance and repair costs down, according to a Monday release from the Youngstown-Warren Regional Chamber.

Rebecca Davis, the institute's director of development, now knows more about the museum's HVAC than she "ever wanted to know," she mused Monday.

"The staff will be able to control the system by computer. It will be a proactive instead of [reactive] kind of monitoring of our system," she said.

In Warren, the Warren Community Amphitheatre has $200,000 in capital funding earmarked to repair the amphitheater's crumbling concrete on sidewalks, ramp sections and stage housing. Another $140,000 will go toward replacing the W.D. Packard Music Hall's 20,000 square-foot roof, which is now 25 years old and past its life expectancy.

OH WOW! The Roger and Gloria Jones Children's Center for Science and Technology in Youngstown is currently under construction, said Executive Director Suzanne Barbati.

The $350,000 allocation included in the capital budget will help the center reorganize and renovate to improve circulation and access, create more community and educational spaces and improve acoustics in exhibit halls, work areas and classrooms.

"These dollars ensure that those efforts build toward the future for our children and our families and our community," she said.

State Rep. Mike O'Brien of Warren, D-64th, said though most of the projects announced Monday were outside his district, they're all part of the Mahoning Valley's cultural profile, noting the number of Trumbull County school buses seen parked outside the OH WOW! center and the number of Valley residents who've taken in shows at the Stambaugh.

Lepore-Hagan said: "I'm so proud of our community, I'm proud of our heritage and history. ... Our history is really valuable."

Guy Coviello, president of the Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber Foundation, on Monday said "the most devastated organizations as a result of COVID have been our arts institutions."

The pandemic brought the bi-annual capital budgeting process to a "slamming halt" just weeks after chamber representatives had promoted several needed local projects to state leaders, Coviello said.

"It looked like there was no hope," Coviello said. "Later in the year, a bipartisan coalition of state leaders got together. ... Before the end of the year, they figured out a way to make it happen."

At the time, Gov. Mike DeWine had also announced the need for austere budget revisions to compensate for the state's maimed economy.

"The governor was talking about how to recoup billions of dollars to keep the state functioning," State Sen. Michael Rulli of Salem, R-33rd, said Monday. "All these projects you see approved were definitely not going to happen. But the legislators got together and we worked very, very hard."

Once the state budget "came out of that hibernation," legislators saw a streamlined version of the capital budget may pass, he said. While budgeting for economic development and job creation is crucial, he said "enlightenment" of culture is also important, he said.

"We have to allows this to be a destination. We have to allow this to be a place for our children to stay here," Rulli said.

Of the state's most recent $2.1 billion biennium capital budget, $3.7 million has been set aside for projects in Mahoning and Trumbull counties. Of that, about a third, $1.3 million is for the arts.

State Sen. Matt Dolan of Cleveland, R-24th, chair of the Ohio Senate Finance Committee which hammered out the capital budget, also joined the local delegation at Monday's event.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Small Business Administration on Monday announced it intends to administer $15 billion in grants to shuttered live arts venues and promoters through the Shuttered Venue Operators program, created in new federal COVID-19 relief legislation signed into law late last year.

Eligible entities include: live venue operators or promoters; theatrical producers; live performing arts organization operators; relevant museum operators, zoos and aquariums that meet specific criteria; motion picture theater operators; talent representatives; and each business entity owned by an eligible entity that also meets the eligibility requirements, according to a Monday release from the chamber.

The SBA is not yet taking applications but released a list of frequently asked questions last week.

This story was originally published February 2, 2021 at 4:11 AM with the headline "More than $1.3M in Ohio’s capital budget will boost local arts venues."