Over recent years the relationship between City Hall and historic Tampa Theatre has been an amiable one with bottom-line considerations. The city owns the building and allows the Tampa Theatre Foundation to use it rent free. It also kicks in an annual subsidy of about $100,000 for the iconic structure. It helps, as Tampa Theatre is constantly hunting for grants and gifts to renovate, upgrade and meet the serious infrastructure needs of a 90-year-old building.
Another Tampa Theatre need: alleviate administrative staff crowding. It was recently addressed when its Foundation board approved the purchase of an office condominium on the southern flank of the theatre building. The money will come from ticket revenue.
Only one problem. Apparently no one gave Mayor Bob Buckhorn a heads up. He reacted the way any fiscally-conservative mayor–who’s also a sound-bite maven–would when blindsided. To wit: “I’m going to look very carefully at any additional funding requests for the Tampa Theatre, when they can’t pay for their basic upkeep but they’re out there buying real estate they don’t need.” Ouch.
In fairness to Tampa Theatre, it has more than a dozen employees crammed into ad hoc theatre spaces, included converted storage areas. Some work out of a “green room” used by performers. But when your existence is so dependent on governmental cooperation/budget priorities, the onus is on you to make sure that the most accountable, high-profile, public official is always in the loop.
And, yes, it would have helped if Gov. Rick Scott had not vetoed the $1 million that state lawmakers had allocated for Tampa Theatre last year.