PrintByline: Liz Farmer
Nearly two years after Baltimore's historic Senator Theatre was saved from the auction block, its owner has decided to transform the financially strapped business into a nonprofit.
Owner Tom Kiefaber said he wants to make the process as open as possible and is welcoming input from the community at a presentation tobe held Thursday at 6 p.m. at the theater, located near Belvedere Square.
Kiefaber did not comment further Wednesday but a notice about the meeting on the theater's Web site explains that the transition is intended to elevate the theatre to new heights during a time when the Senator's endangered status has worsened and its future is in jeopardy due to the worsening economy.
The notice also notes this transition process has been hampered bythe recent dramatic downturn in the economy and that a transition team will seek input from the community as to how it would like to see the theater continue operating.
Jed Dietz, director of the nonprofit Maryland Film Festival, said the move to become a nonprofit makes sense for the theater that has had its fair share of near-death experiences.
In a way, this isn't surprising at all, said Dietz. You look around the country and there used to be a whole lot of theaters that were single-screen palaces and there just aren't that many left -- that, Ithink, tells you all you need to know.
In February 2007, Kiefaber, who has owned the theater since 1989, avoided foreclosure in an 11th-hour effort that entailed raising nearly $105,000 in donations and obtaining a bridge loan to cover the theater's $109,828.64 debt to 1st Mariner Bank.
That was not the first time Kiefaber had faced such a situation. In 2000 and 1993 he was able to stave off foreclosure of the 69-year-old landmark, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, thanks to public help.
The experiences have helped Kiefaber become practiced at fundraising and community involvement -- two elements Dietz said are essentialfor a nonprofit to be successful.
But while nonprofits are eligible for tax and insurance breaks andfoundation grants, Nancy Hall, a senior advisor with the Maryland Association of Nonprofit Organizations, said the transition would require Kiefaber to relinquish some of his ownership control. Kiefaber could either serve as a term-limited member of the theater's board or serve as a salaried executive who answers to the board, she said.
You get some very special tax treatment by being a nonprofit and in exchange the IRS wants to make sure this is a community-enhanced and supported organization and not just one guy running the show, she said.
Hall and Dietz also said that becoming a nonprofit will not provide a quick fix to the Senator's financial problems. Dietz noted the type of programs and events the theater offers -- which will be discussed at Thursday's meeting -- will have to be expanded.
I think the reality is that all the skills and perseverance that Tom has brought to it, you're not going to get enough revenue out of running a single screen theater to operate it, Dietz said, adding thatbooking one or two flops in a year can cripple a single-screen theater's income.
To get the kind of revenue that would allow it to survive, there'sno simple answer, he went on. Being a not-for-profit doesn't guarantee anything, but it sounds like the right structure for the Senator.
