Spokane Valley denies bond request for Spokane Valley Performing Arts Center

Spokane Valley city leaders have declined to help the Spokane Valley Performing Arts Center borrow the millions of dollars it needs to complete construction on the proposed theater.

The Spokane Valley Performing Arts Center sent a request for the city of Spokane Valley on Feb. 27, to help fund its stalled building initiative with a $28 million infusion of cash raised from the sale of bonds after years of struggling to raise enough funds for the project. The city has never bonded a private entity like the performing arts center.

City Manager John Hohman sent an email to the center’s Executive Artistic Director Yvonne Johnson on Thursday informing her that the city will not pursue a bond to help fund the center.

“The City will not further consider your proposal to bond for the performing arts facility,” Hohman wrote in the email. “… The City Council supports the arts and they appreciate the acknowledgement of the City’s previous grant award for the project. We hope you can find alternative funding sources so the project can be completed and given a chance to flourish in the community.”

In order for the City Council and the city to make a decision on the bond proposal, Hohman said the city would need to pay for consultants to investigate the center and the project thoroughly, which would cost the city $96,000, Hohman said.

The City Council voted 6-1 against funding an investigation into the center, effectively voting against funding the center at all. The bond proposal from the center never made it onto a City Council agenda, although Johnson spoke during the public comment portion of several council meetings.

“I think this would set a precedent that I couldn’t support financially or fiscally,” Deputy Mayor Tim Hattenburg said during the meeting. “It puts us in a bad situation.”

Councilman Ben Wick was the only vote for funding the investigation. He said he still supports hearing the center’s proposal to the council.

“To me, the most important thing is to make sure they get heard and feel like they have a voice and to me, I don’t feel like it’s right to say right here, right now,” he said. “I feel like we should give them an agenda item.”

Mayor Laura Padden argued that the council has heard the center out, since people from the center have spoken to the council multiple times during the public comment portion of City Council meetings.

“We did support them, but what ended up happening is really a failed project,” Padden said. “I would have loved to see it be successful. They have lost the bank support. Private support has pulled away. They’ve been advertising on Semble for months and months and months and the needle doesn’t move.”

The center’s track record doesn’t justify a city investment, Padden said.

“The council members closed the door on the municipal bond without letting us formally present,” Johnson said.

Johnson said she’s reached out to Hohman to have a conversation but he has not responded to her requests.

In five years, the center raised a total of $18.3 million, Johnson said.

Several local organizations – including Garco Construction, Idaho Central Credit Union and State Bank Northwest – have stepped back from the project, an ambitious new 59,000-square-foot community theater building on 5 acres in Spokane Valley’s Mirabeau Point area. When the project was announced, Johnson predicted it would cost $25 million. That projected cost from 2020 has about doubled to $48 million.

Phase 1 of building the new performing arts center is predicted to cost $32 million and would be 45,000 square feet, with 463 seats at the main stage, 220 seats in a studio theater and an acting conservatory area, according to Johnson.

Plans for the center were sparked by the Spokane Valley Summer Theatre’s need for a permanent home.

The needs were exacerbated in October when the SVST canceled its 2026 season after the Central Valley School District denied some of the dates requested at University High School, citing scheduling conflicts and previous wear and tear on the high school’s theater.

Since the request for the bond, Spokane Valley has done a brief internal review on the performing arts center’s proposal to the city over the last few weeks, even though the center has yet to give a formal presentation to the City Council, Hohman said.

“They’re coming to the city asking for us to float these bonds and use the city’s credit to make this happen and to make the project move forward,” Hohman said.

If the city did move forward with the bonds and revenue from the theater didn’t come through, the city would need to pay for the bonds other ways, Hohman said.

“If you wanted to move forward with this project, you would have to secure some kind of revenue source in case that happened. So that means that you’d have to identify, to me, what type of tax increase would you like to implement in the chance that they aren’t able to perform financially,” Hohman said to the council.

Hohman noted that the request, $28 million, is a large sum particularly for a city like the Valley, which has little debt. Hohman also hinted that the feasibility study did not seem completely accurate.

“From our initial review of the feasibility study, it is optimistic in various different areas,” Hohman said. “It’s optimistic on the revenue side. It’s optimistic on the expenditure side, but I can’t really quantify that. We’d have to really dive into it in a lot more detail and I think a proposal to this magnitude warrants that.”

Councilwoman Pam Haley agreed with Hohman’s assessment of the center’s feasibility study. After reviewing the study, Haley said the numbers quoted in it were completely off and did not include every expense that a small business has like landscaping and snow removal.

“They need to use our credit in order to get a reasonable interest rate and it’s the people’s credit, it’s you guys, its the citizens of Spokane Valley and you did not sign on to purchase a $28 million bond on a theater,” Haley said.

Haley called the idea of the bond “outrageous” and said she didn’t think it would be fair for the council to entertain the idea of the bond any further, arguing that it would give the center “false hope.”