White Plains CitizeNetReporter - Interior Visual Look of Theatre to Be Presented to Council. Memory Lapses.

WPCNR STAGE DOOR. By John F. Bailey. June 18, 2003: Susan Habel, Commissioner of Planning, informed WPCNR Tuesday that the visual appearance of the White Plains Performing Arts Theatre, which has not been unveiled to this date, would be presented to the Common Council for their approval in the near future, but did not give a time frame.

Ms. Habel sought out WPCNR Tuesday at the Mayor's Safe Housing Task Force News Conference to make clear to WPCNR the process for determining what the White Plains Performing Arts Center was going to look like.

Habel told WPCNR that she, Commissioner of Public Works Joseph Nicoletti and Commissioner of Recreation and Parks, Arne Abramowitz and the Mayor's Executive Officer, George Gretsas were only approving the Performing Arts Center design in regard to its compliance with White Plains codes and building regulations.

Council Will Decide the Set Design.

She emphatically said the quartet were not passing judgement or imposing their tastes on the design of it. WPCNR had thought this was the case, based on Ms. Habel's comments last week, when she told me those city officials were approving the designs of the theatre.

"The theatre has been architecturally designed to work within the city condominium (the theatre space), it's 17,000 square feet of space, and the architectural and engineering plans are reviewed (by Habel, Nicoletti, Abramowitz, Gretsas and the Building Department) within our city departments. The Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning are in, and most of the Mechanical, Electrical, and Plumbing are in, and the theatrical electronic equipment, (lighting, sound, control systems) is being evaluated at this time. Fuller construction and HRH Construction, (Compelli's firms) have the design/build contract. The "interior finish" will be selected by the architect and will be reviewed by the Common Council." Ms. Habel said. Habel said that National Amusements, Inc. theatre architect, Shapiro, Petrauskas Gelber of Philadelphia, which is designing the National Amusements theatres in the City Center, is now designing the look of the Performing Arts Center.

National Amusements had told WPCNR that their architect was on stand-by to help design the theater if they were needed last month. Ms. Habel's report confirmed for the first time that the National Amusements architect was definitely handling the specifications and the appearance of the entire White Plains Performing Arts Center project. She said the firm had extensive experience in theater design, specifications and the latest audio, lighting and production equipment.

Shapiro Petrauskas Gelber, or SPG3 as it now calls itself, designed The Bridge in Philadelphia, a movie complex on the University of Pennsylvania campus for National Amusements, and it specializes in retail movie theatre design. Examples of their projects are available on the company's website at www.spgarch.com.

A spokesperson at SPG3's office told WPCNR that the firm specialized in designing modernistic consumer movie theater complexes, examples of which can be seen on their website.

RFP Amendment a Legal Technicality, Habel explains.

While on the subject, WPCNR asked Ms. Habel why the amendment to the RFP, which legally allowed Tony Stimac and Jeffrey Rosenberg to contend for the prize of managing and programming the White Plains Performing Arts Center, was sent out six weeks after the original RFP deadline. She explained it was a legal requirement:

"Because it was an RFP process, and we had met with the people and we requested additional information," Habel explained that any organization who received the original RFP had to be given an opportunity to reapply if they wished because the Council had asked for such new information and it would have been unfair to those other organizations sent the original Request for Proposal, not to give them an opportunity to reply.

Asked why the new information was requested May 21, six weeks after the RFP deadline of April 4, Habel said the Common Council had met with Stimac and Rosenstock, Centerpoint Stage and Westco Productions, reviewed their proposals and asked for new information and new conditions not spelled out in the original Request for Proposal, which she characterized as being unfair to the 15 organizations sent the original RFP.

Enter Stimac and Rosenstock Stage Late.

Asked when Tony Stimac and Jeffrey Rosenstock had originally come to the attention of the city as being interested in the project, Ms. Habel said she did not remember, saying she was not handling that that the Department of Recreation and Parks was, though she did say that the city got inquiries from as far away as California.

Curious as to when Messrs. Stimac and Rosenstock first submitted their proposal after the deadline (WPCNR first learned of them on May 8, four weeks after the April 4 deadline), we asked Council President Benjamin Boykin on our way out of City Hall when Rosenstock and Stimac first read for the part. We asked when he first heard of the pair, and he did not remember, either.


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