As Theater Wit is planning and building a new space, due for opening in 2006, we thought we might share some of our discoveries and disasters with the community. There are few written guides to help a theatre determine all the issues involved in moving into a new space. We’ll be covering everything we stumble across over the next eight months. Maybe your theatre is building a new space or considering it; perhaps you just enjoy others’ pain. Whatever. Appropriately, this first posting is titled:

“What do I do first?”

Like so many of life’s little problems, this boils down to a few other questions: “Why do I want a theatre space?” “What are my resources?” “Who is going to build it?” and “Where is it going to be?”

The first question is the easiest to address, but the hardest to answer. I posted some of our feelings about owning a space on our web site (www.theaterwit.org), but this is a question every organization needs to answer for itself.

The only answer that’s wrong is, “It will be easier.” I have heard this from dozens of artists in this city. Owning a space makes some things easier: scheduling rehearsal, controlling your season, easy access to your theatre. But each of these benefits comes with a host of new responsibilities, each requiring a fair amount of time, energy and money to manage effectively. Does your theatre have a full-time staff? Do you have a donor base deep enough to cough up your capital requirements for a new building? Do you really have the resources required to run and maintain a theatre? Will investing the money and energy you could be using to produce stretch your organization too thin?

Assuming you and your board all agree on the reasons to build out a new space, you should start locating an architect and scouting out potential locations.

Having a good architect (or architectural team) is essential to building a space. And you can’t have any old architect. First, he/she needs to be an “architect of record,” that is an architect licensed by the city to do designs and submit them to the permitting board. These architects carry additional insurance, have various licensing requirements independent from normal certifications, etc. Often, the architect of record is a firm rather than an individual. There are sufficient barriers to becoming this city-exalted version of an architect that I recommend you partner with one from the beginning. Even if a board member is a fabulous architect, unless he can get a licensed firm to sign off on the plans, there will be no theatre.

As so many theatres know, there is a crazy maze of building codes to be navigated through in regards to your theatre design. Everything is regulated, from the size of your lobby to the width of every door and hallway. The mechanicals (heat, water) have a book all their own. All this material is downloadable from the city, but don’t do it. Missing one will cause your plans to be set back by months. And, frankly, this is what you are paying the architect to understand and implement. This is why we don’t all hire set designers to draft our building plans. Regardless, I found thinking of them as designers very helpful. If they’re any good, they are professionals who are accustomed to designing space for public occupancy while addressing dozens of practical considerations that you may never have considered.

Some smaller architectural firms charge hourly. I recommend against these unless you would like to just pay for proof of concept plans and use a separate firm for the actual project. For a project moving forward, most architects work for a percentage of the total construction costs. This percentage ranges between 5 and 18 percent, depending on the size of the project, its difficulty, etc. For example, we paid our architect hourly to do quick drafts for feasibility studies in a few spaces, then negotiated a rate for the full construction plan once we had enough detail to make a reasonable project estimate and an informed decision on our space.

If you have a friendly architect who may not be able to act as architect of record, don’t ignore him. People like that are a tremendous resource. Perhaps they end up partnering with an architect of record but reduce their fee as a supporter of your theatre. Maybe they only run sanity checks on your drafted plans. In any event, the free-floating, but friendly, architect is a treasure not to be ignored.

Do you need an architect with experience in building theatres? Not necessarily, depending on your other resources, but it helps. We spoke to several theatres about their architect partners and costs. Some were delighted with them, some were enraged. It is certainly worth talking to folks like John Morris, who has a well-deserved reputation for his theatre designs around the city. Talk about the type of theatre you want; what it should feel like. Even if you end up not using a particular architect, often the questions they ask can start you thinking in new directions.

There are also theatre design firms that can either design the entire space or consult with you and your architect on particular issues. We are using one called Schuler Shook, which has been invaluable in bringing new insight to our space design even with a modest investment from us. They made recommendations on our audience-to-stage relationship, reviewed our ADA requirements and made some strong practical suggestions on backstage operations and travel patterns.

A good architect is also a guide, pointing you toward the many businesses and industries that you don’t even know you need. As you budget, be aware that the architectural plan is not the only blueprint you’ll see developed. Unless you have an all-inclusive contract, you can still incur costs for mechanical plans, acoustical plans, structural engineers, and so on and so on. The range of services your architects can provide, themselves, will determine where in that 5-18 percent fee range they should be. I consider the architect my conduit for the build-out. He is a specialized project manager for all the different contractors, zoning lawyers, review boards, etc. In that respect, it’s a good thing we don’t pay them hourly. Here are some of the various additional firms we’ve ended up using:

Structural engineers evaluate the building’s physical condition. How is the roof? What needs to be done to the walls? How are the building supports? The foundation? You can’t file for a building permit without a licensed structural engineer signing off.

Acoustical engineers do analysis of sound bleed and make recommendations. We are looking at two spaces in the same building. We are near the elevated train. What do we have to do to prevent outside sound from bursting in on our plays? This is a highly specialized field. For example, the Goodman theatre spaces are actually built as free-standing boxes sitting on rubber pads over the actual foundation. This prevents the rumble of the underground trains from being audible in the house!

Mechanical engineers do the water, electrical and HVAC plans. You may or may not need this depending on what sort of space you’re moving into. We are taking over an empty box, with no services currently present.

You will need a zoning consultancy firm or a zoning lawyer (or maybe both) to navigate your permits through the zoning process. If you have an excellent head for detail and a high tolerance for boredom, I’m told you can do this yourself with a lot of time. That’s not really me, so we’re hiring.

So what are we paying thus far for architectural and engineering services? In the interest of free and open disclosure, we’ve decided to publish our numbers for other theatres to compare against. Here are our committed expenses to date:

Architectural Services (including drafted plans): 5 percent total cost

Structural Engineering Fees $1,960

Zoning Consultants $4,000

Theatre Design Consultation $6,000

Acoustical Engineers $3,800

Mechanical Engineers $8,000

Of course, you’ll need to collect bids on all these various contracts. As a point of comparison, I had acoustical contract bids as high as $24,000. There can be a wide variance between bids. Your architect is an excellent source to find references for and evaluate the lower bidders.

Whew. $22,000 and all we have is a theatre on paper (and haven’t paid the architect). Next article, we’ll look at some of our considerations when looking for space, start examining zoning requirements and talk about commercial brokers. Future articles will cover landlords, financing, cost estimation, PPAs, the works. The schadenfreude is just beginning! I urge you to make comments about this article on the PerformInk message boards or our theatre’s Web site (www.theaterwit.org). By all means, ask questions and/or take issue with my numbers or process. God knows, I’ve never done this before and hope not to have to do it again.

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