I share Mayor Joe Cobb’s commitment to exploring bold ideas for Roanoke’s future. His opinion piece on the proposed entertainment district at the Berglund Center reflects genuine ambition, an important quality for a civic leader. But not all bold ideas are the right ideas.
The market reality
Let’s talk about the actual numbers. The Roanoke metropolitan statistical area comprises roughly 315,000 people. Of those, perhaps 150,000 to 175,000 are adults who might realistically patronize an entertainment district. As America’s middle class is squeezed, what percentage can afford $300 dinners and hotel stays with any frequency? More critically, a wider breadth of customers from outside of Roanoke already have regional options: Bristol’s Hard Rock Casino sits less than 90 minutes southwest, and Danville’s Caesars Virginia is roughly 90 minutes southeast. Both are already competing for the same draw that Roanoke would target.
The cannibalization problem
But here’s what concerns me even more: This Entertainment District competes with institutions Roanoke already has and may even destroy them.
Roanoke currently supports Mill Mountain Theatre, Opera Roanoke, the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra, two ballet companies, the Jefferson Center, the Taubman Museum, 5 Points Music Sanctuary and the new Exchange Music Hall. These aren’t thriving in surplus. Many operate on thin margins, sustained by loyal but limited audiences and the hard work of development staff scrambling for grants and donations.
What happens to Mill Mountain’s subscriber base when there’s a splashy new entertainment option across town? What happens to downtown restaurants when the district has its own dining venues? What happens to the Jefferson Center’s needed infrastructure repairs when the Berglund performing arts theater gets $30 million in upgrades and steals their touring shows?
What actually matches Roanoke’s scale
Roanoke’s strength has never been competing as a big city. Their success has come from being an exceptional small city. Their arts organizations embody that character. Mill Mountain Theatre, the Jefferson Center, the Taubman Museum, the independent restaurants and music venues, these are human-scaled institutions that create the distinctive sense of place that actually attracts and retains residents and businesses. They’re what make Roanoke special, not what will be replaced by making Roanoke a mini-Vegas.
If there are public dollars available, what if they were used to reduce the operating burden on institutions that already serve your community, rather than subsidizing a new venture that will compete with them for a limited audience?
A different kind of yes
The mayor is right that Roanoke should say yes to bold ideas. But he should also have the wisdom to say yes to the right ideas, ideas that match the market fundamentals and build on Roanoke’s genuine strengths rather than attempting to impose someone else’s vision of urban entertainment.
Roanoke deserves better than a project whose primary justification is that “saying no doesn’t get us anywhere.” The Star City deserves a vision that understands who is already serving the community, celebrates what makes Roanoke distinctive and builds strategically on the foundation you’ve already created.
Geoffrey Kershner is the director of the MFA in Arts Leadership at Randolph College and the former CEO of the Academy Center of the Arts in Lynchburg.
