Half Dead or Still Breathing?

Star developer John Su’s Ten20 Theatre just lost its lease on life – but can it snatch victory from the jaws of defeat?

A year ago, we brought you the thrilling tale of the Ten20 Theatre in Bellevue (“Got Funding?” March 2009). John Su, a local developer of upscale apartment towers, offered to incorporate a mid-size theatre space into his Ten20 Tower at 1020 108th Avenue NE as part of a larger deal he struck with the City of Bellevue to add a city-owned parcel of land to his building’s footprint. 

Su was heralded for his cultural foresight. Ten20 Theatre would anchor Bellevue’s “Cultural Corridor,” alongside Bellevue Regional Library and Su’s Open Satellite. Construction of the tower began. Su peddled the project to the Houston-based Hanover Company but insisted the theatre space be kept in the plans. The contract specified two conditions that enabled this unusual marriage between art and business to take place: First, it required Hanover to leave room for the proposed two-level theatre complex, but not to build it out or run it. Second, it said that if a reasonable effort did not land an operator, Hanover could lease the space out to a retail tenant after giving the city sixty days’ notice. During that time the city could make a counteroffer, if it wished.

Inside the theatre that might have been at 1020 108th Avenue NE in Bellevue. Photograph by Aaron Locke for City Arts.

It didn’t. “The City doesn’t have the resources to build the space. We’re functioning more as advocates,” says Mary Pat Byrne, arts specialist for the City of Bellevue and one of the theatre’s chief boosters. “The space would contribute to our cultural vitality by welcoming many different groups, more affordably than at the Meydenbauer.”

Despite dozens of arts organizations eager for a more intimate auditorium in downtown Bellevue, finding an entity to lease the space proved difficult. Bellevue Civic Theatre, Belle-vue Youth Theatre and even Seattle’s Taproot Theatre all came, looked and talked. But they would have to raise three to four million dollars to build the structure inside the bare concrete walls – stage, seating, rehearsal rooms, offices, bathrooms. There wasn’t even running water or electricity. It was an “empty space” that not even Peter Brook could define as a theatre.

The search dragged on. It seemed that Su’s vision, well-intentioned as it was, had put the cart before the horse. Without a group to take the reins of administration, fundraising and cheerleading, there was no way to finish the theatre. “We found plenty of managers; what was missing was the capitalization,” says Byrne. “That comes through a board, or through investors, who provide the funding and support. Where is the community support?”

And now comes the latest turn in this epic saga: in March, Hanover announced that it had leased the first level of the space to the yoga/ballet studio Barre 3, not a local arts group. “Things have changed,” says Eric Kenney, Hanover’s development partner for the region. “The building’s been finished for over a year, and we’ve got to get somebody in there.”

Far from behaving like the money-grubbing villain of melodrama, Kenney has worked closely with Byrne throughout the story. “It’s unfortunate,” he says of the fruitless search. “It’s a fabulous space. We’re going to continue to work with the city. If the right operator comes along, I’m still going to work as hard as I can to get a theatre in there.”

In where? The deal is done, right? Not quite, for this play has an epilogue. Barre 3 is only leasing the lower of the two floors, and Urbanadd, the architects who created the original theatre design, have already figured out a way to make a more compact performance space using only the second level. So the game is not over.

“It’s certainly not the normal way these things come together,” Byrne admits, “but just because it hasn’t been done this way before doesn’t mean it can’t be done.” Bellevue needs a small theatre to balance the mid-size Meydenbauer and the big forthcoming PACE Center. Maybe we’ll still get one. Maybe. •