Millions to spare? Big-name gifts await

A 2,000-seat performing-arts center in downtown Bellevue, with a half-million potential users from south Snohomish County to Kent, is edging closer to reality.

The Performing Arts Center Eastside (PACE), led by a group of Eastside business and civic leaders, has raised $14 million of its $100 million budget and plans to break ground in September. The center would open at the end of 2008 and could host anything from "Spamalot" and "Mamma Mia" to a Colin Powell speech and the Bellevue Philharmonic.

But supporters must first complete the bulk of the largest fundraising campaign on the Eastside. To stay on schedule, the group wants to raise $50 million more in the next six months to reach 80 percent of the construction cost before groundbreaking.

Developers Kemper and Betty Freeman and Chuck and Karen Lytle are co-chairing the fundraising and say they're confident the goal will be reached. But they will have to persuade Eastside residents accustomed to giving their money to Seattle arts groups.

"Our job is to awaken the wealth of the community to do something in their own community," said Kemper Freeman, a longtime advocate of the center who owns Bellevue Square and Lincoln Square.

The group will first target large donors — gifts ranging from $1 million to $20 million — with special rewards. A $1 million gift, for example, will get a donor's name emblazoned above the box office; $20 million will get the whole center named after the donor.

The Lytles recently pledged $1 million, and the Freemans donated the land for the center at Northeast 10th Street and 106th Avenue Northeast, valued at $8 million.

PACE supporters have been working the past few years to drum up interest in the project. They started the Act One Guild, which organized the center's first fundraiser in fall 2004, and are throwing parties in homes across the Eastside.

In the "Bucks for PACE" program, 22 artists will decorate life-size fiberglass deer, which will be displayed around Bellevue this summer and auctioned off in the fall.

The effort to build a large theater on the Eastside started more than 20 years ago but has been delayed several times, either by a lack of interest or a poor economy. Kemper Freeman has been the center's most visible supporter since the late 1980s, but several other Eastside leaders, including Issaquah developer Skip Rowley and former Bellevue Mayor Ron Smith, joined the PACE board about four years ago.

Supporters say downtown Bellevue has matured, even in the past few months. Freeman's Lincoln Square opened in November and has attracted throngs of people to its upscale restaurants and shops.

Thousands of apartments and condos are built or planned within a six-block radius of PACE. About 4,500 people live downtown, and that is expected to grow to 14,000 by 2020.

"There's no question over the last couple years Bellevue has really evolved," Karen Lytle said. "We're not the stepchild of Seattle anymore."

Eastside residents also want a large, upscale arts facility to call their own, PACE supporters say. A market of 500,000 people, from Mill Creek to Kent and as far east as North Bend, will appreciate the chance to attend top-flight shows closer to their backyard, supporters say.

PACE will act as a bridge between the smaller theaters on the Eastside, which each have a few hundred seats, and the bigger theaters in Seattle, such as the Paramount and Benaroya Hall, Freeman said.

The Bellevue theater is not expected to compete with the Seattle theaters but instead will create thousands of arts patrons who haven't wanted to cross the bridges into Seattle, supporters say.

Still, with many restaurants, stores and condos nearby or in the works — and thousands of free parking spaces — PACE will help create a thriving theater district more dynamic and accessible than anything in Seattle, Freeman said. Going out for a nice dinner, a show and drinks afterward in Seattle is "hard to do in one stop," he said.

Ashley Bach: 206-464-2567 or abach@seattletimes.com