Purchase of Highland Park Theater

We voted to purchase the Highland Park Theater because it provides our downtown and community with a great opportunity for economic, cultural, and historical enhancement.

Economically, we bought this theater at a good price. It is a valuable asset that will hold its value to our community on several levels. First, as part of our plan, we have done the professional studies that shows it is structurally viable and can be marketed as a performance art facility and produce a profit for a theater company. Likewise it will also become a stronger economic engine for our downtown, producing additional sales tax, food and beverage tax, and causing less reliance on our property taxes which are mostly supported by our residents. This theater will import these tax revenues as a majority of patrons will come from outside Highland Park. Our studies have shown us that our downtown can be most successful if we focus on entertainment and restaurants. The Country Kitchen might have to open for dinner!

Culturally, we know this project makes our community a better place to live and raise our children. The Arts are core ingredient to our success. The Arts are important to us as we teach our children what is important to the growth of our lives. The quality of life in Highland Park only improves with the success of productions at the Highland Park Theater. Writers Theater, a successful theater company and first choice for negotiating a partnership with the city, provides us with a great possibility of success in our mission.

Historically, the Highland Park Theater is an anchor at the East end of town and should be retained for future generations. If this community did not step forward in this preservation it would certainly be lost.

Again, this is not an asset that will devalue and is worth most to our community not only as a theater but also because it is contiguous to current city owned lands.

The dollars for this purchase will be paid back from new imported tax dollars and an existing balance in our downtown development funds(specifics to be released soon). I had represented from the start of this project that we needed to find a new imported revenue source for this purchase and that will be the case.

During these economic times we should not retreat, but rather invest in success and future growth that will return imported tax revenues to help support services to our citizens.