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Selling Out

Naming rights to Miami parks may soon be up for sale to the highest bidder

 

Unhealthy Proposal

The Miami-Dade School Board wants to reduce district-wide health care coverage, but the county’s teachers aren’t having it.

 

Dermer Redux

Miami Beach commissioners may forgo an election and appoint a familiar face — former Commissioner and three-time Mayor David Dermer — to fill a soon-to-be-vacant commission seat.  

 

NEWS

 

Miami Beach

Building officials are arrested for taking kick-backs.

 

Miami-Dade

Tired of riding scummy Metrorail cars? Don’t fret; the County Commission plans to buy a bunch of new ones.

 

Miami

Adrienne Arsht Center Interim CEO Larry Wilker says everything’s just swell at the once-beleaguered venue.

 

Miami

Three years late, commissioners finally move forward with an ordinance to regulate outdoor mural advertisements.

 

Miami

Julie O. Bru says she’s “humbled” to be the new city attorney.

 

Miami Beach

Can CANDO do what the city says it can do?

 

Aventura

City Manager Eric Soroka says the commission should postpone annexing a neighboring unincorporated area.

 

Bal Harbour

Village officials finally decide to allow bikes on the beach.

 

Broward County

County officials want to pay county contractors “living wages.”

 

The 411

Kate Hudson and Owen Wilson are lovin’ Miami — and each other.

 

Make Me The President

Barack or Hillary — it doesn’t matter. Your vote won’t count.

 

Bound

Scott Simon writes about ugly Chicago politics in Windy City.

 

Theater

Blackbird tackles pedophilia in compelling Gablestage production.

 

Theater

King Arthur wears a crown of Spam, and little orphan Annie is a chain-smoking alcoholic in Forbidden Broadway.

 

Calendar

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Film

If you were fat or ugly in high school, you could’ve used someone like Drillbit Taylor, but don’t waste your time watching this movie.

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Music

Yellowcard bounces back from a disappointing sophomore album with Paper Walls

 

Art

Claudia Scalise’s Un Pueblo Blanco transforms suburban monotony into really cool art.

 

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News

 March 20, 08

PAC Turnaround

A new act for the Arsht Center

By Cynthia Archbold

A new management team and a $30 million donation from philanthropist Adrienne Arsht may have been enough to save the once-beleaguered Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts in downtown Miami and steer it to a new course.

“Ticket sales continue to improve” and audiences are filling the performances halls to 80 percent capacity, up from 40 percent in previous seasons, Interim CEO Larry Wilker said Monday.

Wilker, the man credited with turning around Washington, D.C.’s John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, took over his current post from former CEO Michael Hardy in November to do the same for the troubled Miami venue.

Wilker had his work cut out for him. Ticket sales have been dismal since the facility, then called the Carnival Center, opened in October 2006. In its first year under Hardy, it ran up a $7 million deficit, failed to make payments on its construction debt to the county and required an extra $4.1 million bailout from taxpayers.

But, on Monday, Wilker reported a complete turnaround. “I am pleased to report that we continue to operate on budget and our operating costs are lower than budgeted, and we expect to return money to the county this year,” he said.

The status report was positive news for skeptics who balked at the taxpayer-funded bailout of a performing arts center that critics said was built to amuse the rich. Even County Commissioner Javier Souto, chair of the commission’s Recreation and Cultural Affairs Committee, had recently referred to the performing arts center’s supporters as “the wine and cheese and Gucci shoes people.” 

Wilker told the committee that he cut operating costs for the month of January down to $535,000, 38 percent lower than originally budgeted.

“We are prepared to make our second payment of our accelerated construction recovery effort of $375,000, and that will be paid to the county at the end of this month on schedule,” he added.

Souto and others have maintained that taxpayers should not have been stuck paying for what was supposed to be a planned public-private partnership for the $473 million facility — which turned out to be $140 million over budget.

Now, at least according to Wilker, the Arsht Center is starting to pull its weight, with ticket sales producing more revenues than expected, Broadway shows luring steady audiences and both the free, monthly Target Globalbeat and the Gospel Sunday concert series attracting new crowds.

Plus, Wilker plans to meet with officials at Miami International Airport, American Airlines Arena and the Miami seaport to discuss plans to draw in tourists with special entertainment packages.

“Whatever you are doing, it is working,” Souto told Wilker.
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