City Authority Agrees to ArtsQuest SteelStacks Lease

The Bethlehem Redevelopment Authority today approved an agreement to lease 2 acres of improved former Bethlehem Steel property to ArtsQuest, where it will be operating an outdoor concert pavilion and a visitors center as part of its developing SteelStacks campus.

The authority, through , is paying nearly $8 million for the construction of the Levitt Pavilion and a historically accurate restoration of the 1863 Bethlehem Steel Stock House, which stored raw materials for steelmaking before going to the blast furnace.

The Stock House, which is to be restored by spring 2012, will be home to a new visitors center. It will be equipped and staffed to provide information to visitors about the city and the greater Lehigh Valley.

It will also be used in some way to convey the history of South Bethlehem and Bethlehem Steel, though the details of how that will be done must still be worked out.

As part of the agreement, ArtsQuest will staff and train volunteers to operate the center. The nonprofit will also occupy the second floor of the building, which it will use as office space.

Meanwhile, will host 50 free concerts every summer, plus a host of paid and non-paid festival performances staged by ArtsQuest.

Located in the shadow of the old blast furnace – on its northern side at the western end – the permanent band shell will be the new home of Musikfest’s Americaplatz, which had traditionally been located at Payrow Plaza between City Hall and the main branch of the Bethlehem Area Public Library.

With band shell construction nearing completion, the first Levitt Pavilion show is scheduled on July 2 with singing blues piano player Marcia Ball.

While the authority is paying for these infrastructure improvements, in the lease, ArtsQuest is agreeing to pay for routine maintenance and upkeep of the facilities, including public restroom cleaning, lawn maintenance, snow removal, the payment of all utility bills and insurance premiums for the properties.

ArtsQuest will pay $1 for the term of the lease, which is nine years and set to expire in 2020, the year the TIF is expiring. It is then renewable in 10-year intervals after that.

The annual cost of maintaining and staffing the facilities, as well as providing the musical programming at the Levitt Pavilion, has been estimated by ArtsQuest at more than $3.3 million or nearly $29.5 million for the duration of the initial lease.

“It’s a true public-private partnership,” said Jeff Parks, the president of ArtsQuest.

The day before, he and Mayor John Callahan held a news conference with some members of the media to discuss the proposed lease agreement, in part to blunt any criticism that ArtsQuest is not paying its fair share in a deal that gives it office space as well as publicly financed plazas for which the nonprofit can sell naming rights.

“We’re singing for our supper and then some,” Parks said.

The lease deal is now scheduled to go before City Council for its approval at its next meeting on Tuesday night. Without council approval, the deal cannot proceed.