Is Smith Center a gamble or a sure bet?
The Los Angeles Times, ever attentive to what’s happening in Las Vegas, printed a story today about the imminent groundbreaking for the Smith Center for the Performing Arts.
Noting the lousy economy and the recent closure of the Las Vegas Art Museum, the Times characterizes the $475 million project as a “cultural gamble.” The article questions “whether a city that in recent years has tried to cultivate a more sophisticated and cosmopolitan image can sustain a high-arts presence and fill the seats at its fancy new cultural center.”
Myron Martin, president of the Smith Center, responds that locals, not tourists, will be the center’s main audience. “I think we’ve reached critical mass, that our citizens demand a better quality of life,” he said.
The city’s current economic problems certainly must prompt speculation as to whether the Smith Center will succeed. But the local economy almost certainly will look a lot different — better, one expects — when the facility opens in 2012.
In addition, it’s unwise to compare the Smith Center with the Las Vegas Art Museum. The museum faced a unique set of challenges, from its small size to its suburban location to the culture’s evolving — perhaps devolving — approach to fine art, especially modern art.
The Smith Center, by contrast, will have a perfect facility, a central location and performance offerings such as the Las Vegas Philharmonic, Nevada Ballet Theatre and traveling Broadway productions that have proved very viable in Las Vegas in recent years.
Las Vegas may never develop into one of the nation’s leading arts communities — intrinsically, the city just isn’t built that — but its 2 million population sure as heck can support one off-Strip performing arts center.
