Week of Dec. 12, 2024

From the editor’s desk

At last week’s Reno City Council meeting, the $827,373 that had been earmarked for improvements to the long-dormant Lear Theater was reallocated toward other uses. The reason was that no contractors had bid on the job.

To be clear, this amount of funding would not have been anywhere near enough to fully renovate and reopen the theater, which was built in 1939 and has been closed since 2002. It would have funded an initial spruce-up, in an effort to prevent further deterioration. The building’s future relies upon a much larger influx of funding. Various estimates are in play, based on how extensive a renovation would be; the figure that City Council members kicked around in conversations is $25 million.

In yesterday’s City Council meeting, officials addressed the theater’s fate once again. Here are a few highlights from that discussion: 

Mayor Hillary Schieve: “I just want to explain how we got here.” 

She was referring to the Lear’s chain of ownership over the last two decades. Since 2011, it has been transferred to Artown, then the Sierra School of Performing Arts—groups that are more in the business of programming arts events than raising millions to renovate historic structures—to the city of Reno.

Councilmember Naomi Duerr explained why she had advocated for the building to return to the city’s possession: “The city has people like project managers, engineers—we do it all the time. … That’s really more in our bailiwick.” She added that the city has renovated historical structures for public use before, such as the Southside School and the McKinley Arts & Culture Center.

Schieve: “That is a gem in our community. If we lose it, we are in big trouble.” 

She acknowledged that the notion of the city holding on to the building has its critics. To them, she says, “I’m going to ask and beg and plead: Please be part of the solution instead of part of the problem. We’ve got to do this together. And it would be a most beautiful building … for children, for the performing arts.”

Council Member Devon Reese: “I don’t think there’s anyone in this community who does not think that the Lear should … not be preserved for future generations to enjoy its architectural and cultural significance. The historical significance to the Black community is unparalleled in terms of who the architect was.”

The architect was Paul Revere Williams, the first well-known Black architect in the Western U.S.

“It’s been passed around for 20 years,” Reese added. “The truth is that we have a $25 million black hole that we don’t know how to fill. We’re not going to get $25 million by cobbling together our piggy banks and different groups fighting very hard for it.” He mentioned that various federal and state preservation funding options had already been eliminated; he mentioned a bond or a tax as possible solutions.

Councilmember Kathleen Taylor: “I do not believe we have the expertise to be working within this space. … I appreciate the effort and the idea. We do not have the money, and we are not going to have the money.”

Duerr said, essentially, that while the wheels of government turn slowly, they do turn. She cited the Moana Pool—closed, demolished and eventually replaced with the $52 million pool complex that opened this past August. The process took two decades, and the funding came in waves.

The City Council is slated to revisit the topic in the spring. 

Take care,

—Kris Vagner, managing editor

From the RN&R