City Council leaders split over limited Portland’5 management options • Oregon ArtsWatch

The leadership of the City Council is divided over the limited number of proposals to operate the Portland’5 Centers for the Performing Arts.

The City will assume management of the five venues in the three downtown buildings it owns from Metro, the elected regional government, on July 1, 2027.

But only two organizations responded by the Oct. 14 deadline to the City’s Requests for Proposals to manage them. That is far fewer than the nine organizations that responded to the Request for Information by the mid-June deadline.

The responses to the RFIs were immediately made public. The City originally said the names and details of those responding to the RFP would not be released until the decision was made. But the names of those submitting the only two responses were posted on a Portland’5-related website on Oct. 16.

One, Portland Cultural Arts, is being organized by Broadway Across America, the organization that stages touring Broadway shows in the Keller Auditorium, 222 S.W. Clay St., which is one of the Portland’5 venues.

The other, Oak View Group 360, is a subsidiary of Global Spectrum, LP, a large Philadelphia-based for-profit business that manages venues and events across the country.

Asked by Oregon ArtsWatch whether the choice is too limited, Council President Jamie Dunphy said, “I care deeply about the management of P5 but would not want to comment publicly on a competitive bidding process in a way that could unduly influence the process.”

In contrast, Council Vice President and District 4 Councilor Olivia Clark said, “I do wish there had been more applicants, as competition is healthy. My district includes downtown and I served on Council’s Arts and Economy Committee, so I know how vital these decisions are to the future of our performing arts venues and to our central city’s prosperity.” 

The applications are being reviewed by an Evaluation Committee whose members have not been disclosed. The City expects to announce its choice in November. Under the new City Charter approved by Portland voters in November 2022, it does not need to be approved – or even reviewed – by the Council.

“Under Portland’s new Charter, the Mayor may ‘authorize, negotiate and execute all contracts.’ Council can always act to shape the budget or legal purpose of the P5 theaters, but we do not have any direct role in this or any RFP process under current law,” Dunphy said.

Decisions years in the making

The other Portland’5 venues are the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall at 1037 S.W. Broadway and the Antoinette Hatfield Hall at 1111 S.W. Broadway, which houses the Brunish, Newmark and Winningstad theaters. Management was originally transferred to Metro when all three were first considered regional assets in 1989. The City and Metro agreed last December that management should be transferred back to Portland after years of increasing operational difficulties.

The transfer was first recommended by a 19-member joint Performing Arts Venues Workgroup formed to study the problems and propose solutions. It also recommended that the City consider multiple “effective” operating structures, noting that management could be contracted to a nonprofit organization, a for-profit business, or a Portland-based university.

Although the two management proposals have not yet been released, both organizations responded to the RFI. The one from the Oak View Group is a convention business model, and Broadway Across America has proposed creating a new organization called the Portland Cultural Trust.

“Creation of an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, the Portland Cultural Trust (PCT), governed locally, but supported operationally by Broadway Across America,” Broadway Across America’s response reads in part. “This model provides a fully integrated, system-wide structure that combines mission driven governance, philanthropic capacity to enable use of the venues rent-free or at a subsidized cost for local nonprofit arts organizations, a unified cross-venue strategy and services, and a mechanism for venue repairs and maintenance, under the leadership of nationally experienced operators. This model also supports the expansion of shared service venue management to other existing venues or new developments, such as [Portland State University] or other public facilities in Portland’s downtown core.”

Until the responses to the RFP are released, it is impossible to know how much they differ from those to the RFI, if at all.

The new manager for the Portland’5 is expected to be announced shortly before the City Council makes a related decision – whether to build a new City-owned performing arts center at Portland State University, a project estimated at $448 million. If approved by the Council and constructed, it would host the touring Broadway shows while the Keller is remodeled as a smaller theater.

The Portland’5 management contract being considered by the City does not include the proposed new center, which would be part of PSU’s larger proposed Performing Arts + Culture Center. That would need to be negotiated separately.

The proposed PSU project, at 310/330 S.W. Lincoln St., would include a smaller theater, classrooms, a boutique hotel, and parking, all of which would be financed by the university.

Regardless of who the City chooses to manage the Portland’5, the Council must figure out how to pay for $336 million in repairs and deferred maintenance identified by Metro as part of the transition process. That does not include the cost of remodeling the Keller into a smaller theater, the cost of which has not yet been estimated.

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• More information about the Performing Arts Venues Workgroup can be found here.
• The Request for Information submissions that were posted in mid-June, including submissions from nine groups, can be found here.
• A previous Oregon ArtsWatch story on the City taking back management of the Portland’5 Centers for the Performing Arts from Metro can be found here.
• A previous Oregon ArtsWatch story on the repair and deferred maintenance needs of the Portland’5 Centers for the Performing Arts can be found here.
• A previous Oregon ArtsWatch story on the Keller Auditorium and PSU Performing Arts + Culture Center can be found here.