The headphones for the Homewood, Hill District and Hazelwood oral history exhibits rest silently in their cradles. The artwork, save for a dozen photos by Charles “Teenie” Harris, is all in storage. The August Wilson Center for African American Culture is dark, but if all goes well, it will again be open and vibrant by spring.
The Pittsburgh Foundation, which now owns the center, along with its partners the R.K. Mellon Foundation and the Heinz Endowments, announced Dec. 4 that it has created a temporary governance board—foundation heads Maxwell King, Scott Izzo and Grant Oliphant—to oversee the center until its Building Board is empanelled to manage the building and its finances.
“Over the next three to six months, the temporary board will conduct a search for qualified people to put together the Building Board,” said Pittsburgh Foundation spokesman Doug Root. “It will be majority African-American and will hire a director.”
King said the board will consist of three to five members who have expertise in real estate, business, finance and nonprofit facilities management. He said he is not planning to appoint anyone from the center’s previous management teams.
In the interim, Root said during a media-only tour of the center, personnel from the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust will conduct a detailed inventory of the center’s assets and evaluation of the building’s condition.
Pittsburgh Foundation President and CEO Maxwell King said his first priority will be establishing a long-term building management contract with the Cultural Trust because of their expertise in successfully operating arts and entertainment venues.
“During this transitional period, we will work with a range of groups and individuals, locally and nationally to develop the best possible management practices and highest-quality programming,” said King.
To find the proper balance between revenue and programming the Trust will work closely with the August Wilson Center Recovery Committee, which is comprised of members of the African-American arts community under the direction of Kelly Strayhorn Executive Director Janera Solomon.
Naturally she would like to kick off the Center’s reopening in a grand way, but she realizes she has to move cautiously.
“The challenge is maintaining the balance between programming and rentals,” she said. “We want to avoid the mistakes of the past.”
Overall, said King, the new management will be dedicated to transparency. This will include releasing quarterly reports on planning efforts and programming initiatives, and financial summaries. All will be posted on the Pittsburgh Foundation website.
Some of the future planning efforts could involve developing the air rights above the center to generate revenue. Kevin Acklin, Pittsburgh Urban Redevelopment Authority chair and chief of staff to Mayor Bill Peduto said he plans to discuss that option with the governance board.
New York developers, Liberty Partners had planned to do that with a hotel, but were sued by the URA and the city, eventually dropping their $9.5 million bid for the center, which allowed the foundations group to buy it from Dollar Bank at a November sheriff’s sale.
(Send comments to cmorrow@newpittsburghcourier.com.)
