FARMINGTON – When the keepers of an anonymous $5 million donation call on the community for help to spend the loot, it’s not surprising that people are eager to answer.

That’s just what the University of Maine at Farmington did this month, asking community members with interest in the arts and economic development to come together to brainstorm a plan of action for spending the $5 million that was anonymously donated to the college two years ago.

The donation is earmarked for the building of a community arts center to be named in memory of Ted and Marguerite Emery, a former UMF professor and his wife who were major enthusiasts of arts and culture in the area.

Some suggestions that came out of the meeting were spending the money to renovate the arts space the college and community already have, like the 400-plus seat Nordica Auditorium or UMF’s Alumni Theater and then building a scaled-down performance space on UMF’s proposed site that would be visible, generate interest and spur donations.

It was also determined that performers’ needs must assessed as do the needs of audiences.

High hopes

When the donation was made, estimates for the arts center ranged from $15 million to $20 million, which seemed do-able at the time.

“In the climate when we started planning, it seemed feasible,” UMF President Theo Kalikow explained at the brainstorm session, which drew a cross-section of around 50 municipal officials, UMF faculty, artists, health workers, economic strategists and others from Weld to Kingfield.

“And then,” Kalikow reported with her trademark chuckle, “the economy went to hell.”

So, now that the old plan of building a colossal complex for the arts isn’t a reality, Kalikow wants to know what to do and wonders if it’s best to build in smaller, more modest phases. “We need to start with something,” she said.

“There are a lot of things that were possible in the ’90s that aren’t as possible today, but they are not impossible,” said Mary Sylvester, development director for UMF and for the Emery project. Now to get things done, she said, you have to “incrementally work like mad.”

Kalikow again stressed that UMF is “committed” to having the Emery center be a “true” collaboration between the college and community. “The donors very much wanted this to be a partnership that strengthened arts groups in the community,” she said.

UMF has tentatively looked at a parcel of land behind the community center on Quebec Street as a site for the center, but it’s just a “blob on the map,” she said.

The goal of the meeting wasn’t to come up with a specific price or product, but instead to bring everyone up to speed on the project and then establish a planning group that would make a plan that could be put into action by next June.

One of the questions that needs to be answered is whether the center can be built in stages with each of those stages having meaning, Kalikow said. “We need to build something that’s self-contained with the money we have.”

The college will chip in help with operating revenue and upkeep once the center is open, she said, but not cover them all.

Already, the plan has a tremendous ally, Kalikow announced Monday, pointing to Alison Hagerstrom, executive director the Greater Franklin Development Corp., who will serve as a facilitator for the Emery planning committee.

“I am excited and looking forward to it,” said Hagerstrom, a UMF alum.

To get involved in the planning committee or to make a donation, contact Mary Sylvester at 778-7509 or Alison Hagerstrom at 778-5887.

sdepoy@sunjournal.com

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