Center lands second grant

A second grant to the Smith Center for the Performing Arts will enable the entire $360 million complex to be built at the same time -- if backers can raise $75 million by November of next year.

The Donald W. Reynolds Foundation is to announce today that it is offering a $100 million "challenge grant" to the Smith Center.

Before today's announcement, plans had called for building the performing arts center in phases, which would take longer to complete and cost more because of rising construction expenses.

While today's announcement is not a magic bullet, it does give backers more confidence that the center will become a reality.

"I can't tell you how optimistic I am," center Chairman Don Snyder said. "It's more doable today than it was before."

Originally, two phases of construction were going to take place, starting with a 2,050-seat performance hall to house the Las Vegas Philharmonic Orchestra and traveling Broadway shows.

The second phase would have included a 650-seat theater that would be home to the Nevada Ballet Theatre, with two other theaters and an education/community outreach complex.

Now all of it can be built at the same time, provided the private fundraising goal is met. Construction at the Union Park site in downtown Las Vegas would start late in 2008 and wrap up in 2011.

"There are great economies of scale to doing it that way," said Myron Martin, the center's executive director. "Instead of bidding all the second phase in 2009 with a bunch of cost escalations, we're bidding it all at one time."

The center will be named for Reynolds Foundation Chairman and former Review-Journal General Manager Fred W. Smith and his wife, Mary B. Smith.

The foundation was started in 1954 by Donald W. Reynolds, a Texas-born and Oklahoma City-raised media entrepreneur.

Reynolds founded the Donrey Media Group, which operated daily newspapers including the Las Vegas Review-Journal. He died in 1993. The Donrey Media Group is now Stephens Media, which is based in Las Vegas.

The foundation initially gave the arts center $50 million. Of that, $45 million is reserved for an endowment to fund operations.

"We were so impressed with the design of the Smith Center that we wanted to make sure that the entire campus was built at one time," Smith said in a statement.

The center has about $45 million in private pledges already, Snyder said. The $75 million goal is in addition to funds already pledged, he said.

To reach that target, backers will be approaching major donors to be part of a Founder's Club, and naming rights inside the center are available.

If the regional economy were a little more robust than it is now, that would be nice, Snyder acknowledged, but he said the interest exists to see the project through.

"You have a very optimistic business community here that has been through the ups and downs of the economy," he said.

"This is probably the most significant thing that will have happened in our lifetimes. There is no project that will touch our community more broadly and more deeply."

Funding for the center's construction is coming from several sources:

• Rental car tax, $140 million.

• Reynolds Foundation, $105 million ($5 million from the initial grant, and the new $100 million challenge grant).

• Private commitments, $45 million.

Contact reporter Alan Choate at achoate@reviewjournal.com or (702) 229-6435.