1 post tagged “miami”
Miami arts center is $3 million in red
The Carnival Center for the Performing Arts costs more to operate than administrators expected, while ticket revenues have been below budget.
BY LAWRENCE A. JOHNSON AND DANIEL CHANG
dchang@MiamiHerald.com
Despite its artistic successes, Miami's Carnival Center for the Performing Arts has rung up a $3 million deficit in the five months since it opened -- a period when the center was expected to be only $150,000 in the red.
Center administrators blame budget miscalculations and weak ticket sales. Security, maintenance and utilities are running at twice the budgeted amount, they said, while ticket revenues have fallen below expectations by about 40 percent, leading Miami-Dade County officials to question the basis for the center's budget assumptions.
''Quite honestly, they budgeted it wrong,'' said Alex Muñoz, assistant county manager overseeing the Carnival Center through February. The county owns the Carnival Center and will contribute $3.75 million to operations this year, but the center is operated by an independent trust and its budget does not require county approval.
Carnival Center CEO Michael Hardy said the projections were based on early drafts of the center's budget and costs at 30 performing arts centers across the country, which averaged $7.66 per square foot. The Carnival Center's costs have been $15.40 per square foot.
County could turn over Carnival Center to private managers By Dan Dolan
We had tickets for the March 24th performance of Wicked at the Carnival Center for the Performing Arts. My wife and I had read the book and were looking forward to the show. What we didn't realize was the odyssey we were embarking upon. On that same day, within blocks of each other there were four events taking place at the same time and drawing large crowds. Wicked was playing in the ballet opera house (in the west wing of the Carnival Center), across the street Anoushka Shankar was performing in the Concert Hall (the east wing), the Ultra Music Festival was taking place at Bicentennial Park a mere block away and the Miami Heat were playing the Philadelphia 76ers at the American Airlines Arena. All these venues sit on the main road that cuts through downtown Miami, Biscayne Boulevard. We had been having dinner at a small restaurant about twenty or thirty blocks south on Brickell Avenue. We finished our dinner about an hour before the 8:00 pm performance. It was raining and we had left our umbrella at home.
We headed north on Brickell Ave. As we crossed the bridge that leads into downtown proper, a few blocks south of Flagler Street we realized something was very wrong. The traffic was tremendous, cars were barely moving at all. I attempted to get around the traffic by getting on southeast 3rd Ave, making a right on Flagler Street and turning into Biscayne Blvd. Although we eventually made it to Biscayne Blvd, the traffic was still at a standstill. I made a left as soon as possible and headed north again through the back streets of downtown Miami.
We were making some progress now, it seemed that we may even get to the theater early. But another obstacle stood in our way, finding a place to park our car. We had planned on parking at my sister in law's building a few blocks away, but the continuing rain, our lack of an umbrella and the limited time demanded we find a spot closer to the theater. There was one small parking lot right next to the center (the parking lots are highlighted in green in the satellite image above), but that required special parking passes that had to be purchased in advance separately from out $80 tickets. We continued to the very next lot but a very rude lady waved us away. I guess it was been too much to ask her to put a lot full sign to warn desperate people like us. We drove around and found what seemed to be another lot. It ended up being the same lot that had just turned us away. We kept driving and we found a third lot. They were asking $20 for parking, we were desperate so we paid. The parking lot looked more like a wasteland than a parking lot. It was unpaved and covered in unevenly spread gravel. The uneven geography combined with the copious rain and total lack of drainage had produced large and deep puddles which seemed large enough for hippos to wade in. The cars were packed tightly and haphazardly making it difficult to drive around the lot. I found the one free spot at last, it was in the middle of one of the larger lakes that covered the property. I let my wife out of the car in a relatively shallow spot and anchored the car on its new berth in the middle of the lake. Somehow we had made to the Carnival Center by the skin on our teeth. We got to the door of the theater as the clock turned to 8:00 pm. The managers of the performance must have know that the conditions were bad because the play began late. We were tired, stressed and wet but we had made it. The play was great we loved it. It was quite different from the book, as it would need to be, the book is quite long and most of it had to be excised ot changed altogether to turn it into a play. Changes and all the play was excellent and we were pleased. We left the theater and noticed a very large crowd milling around the entrance. The valet parkers were anxiously waiting for their cars. I hear it can sometimes take upwards of 40 minutes to get your car. Thankfully we didn't have to wait and the rain had abetted. We waded to the car and drove home.
Having had such an unpleasant experience getting to the theater in time, its no wonder that the Carnival Center is having trouble making ends meet. The attendance is not what they expected and needed to meet their revenue goals. I think their problems start with their own lack of planning and extremely optimistic proyections. Downtown Miami is notorious for its lack or parking, yet the designers of the Carnival Center did not plan a parking structure. They did not build any parking facilities for this beautiful, state of the art facility. It's like dessing up in your best tuxedo and forgetting to wear pants. Knowing how hard it is to find a parking spot in Miami on a good day, why would you fail to build a parking facility? Where do you expect people to go? Yes there are some off site lots, like the oner in the Omni hotel, but that is several blocks away and in inclement weather, which is not uncommon in Miami, those are very long blocks indeed. A reasonable person would have expected to ramp up attendance. Miami has not had a performing arts facility of this caliber before and it takes a while to get people to come. You have to expect that it will take a long time to build an audience. you can't expect full houses to materialize out of thin air, especially when you don't have adequate parking.
Another problem with the Performing Arts center is its location. Aside from not being in one of Miami's best neighborhoods, the center sits astride Biscayne Boulevard, mere blocks from other venues that bring lots of traffic to the area. While the managers of the center cannot move the facility somewhere else, they could try to work with the city to mitigate the traffic. On the night in question, I did not see one police officer directing traffic. With a play and a concert taking place at the Performing Arts center, a day-long rock concert at Bicentennial Park, literally across the street, and a Basketball game all taking place at the same time someone should have anticipated trouble. The managers of the Carnival Center should have asked the city for help in managing the anticipated traffic. That a host of police officere were not out in force directing thraffic and smoothing out the flow is unpardonable. Many people were late arriving at the play because of the traffic, I know several people missed the play entirely because the horrendous traffic kept them from arriving at all.
The real problem is that this center was built in Miami. Miami is a big city wannabe, it looks at its neighbors like Hialeah and Medley and it feels like a champ instead of the chump it really is. Miami suffers from delusions of grandeur. Miami has for many years fancied being one of the big cities like New York, Los Angeles or Atlanta. This truly first class facility is more than Miami deserves. We don't have the culture or the infrastructure to support such a massive Performing Arts facility. Miami is too mired in small minded, parroquial in-fighting and corruption to become one of the big guys. We are not going to be anywhere near the same league as NYC, LA or The Peach city until we get with the program. I am not saying those big cities are trouble free, they all have big city problems to be sure. Miami has to learn the basics of being a city, like getting some real public transportation county wide or building a decent airport (anyone who has flown almost anywhere outside of Miami knows what a truly miserable airport MIA is). Miami has to concentrate on smaller things like figuring out the basics of running a city. Forget the dreams of grandeur, instead of multimillion dollar performing arts center we should be worrying about the buses running on time, the building code being strong enough, preparing for the next hurricane and making sure our sewer system can handle the inevitable flooding that happens every rainy season. Miami has to stop dreaming big and start taking care of the small details. There is a lot of wisdom on the saying “the devil is in the details.” Miami will never become a great city as long as we don't get the little things right. Maybe the Performing Arts enter will eventually run in the black, I hope as much, but I fear that there are some tough times ahead.
